On January 23, 2018, Google began offering audiobooks for sale in its Google Play Store. One can begin by purchasing individual books; there is no need to sign up to a monthly subscription. In addition to desktop PCs, the audiobooks can be enjoyed through smartphones or any device equipped with Goog...

According to an article published by Taiwanese information site Focus Taiwan (CNA) on February 13, 2018, there was a slight increase in the number of books published in Taiwan last year compared to the year before last. A report by Taiwan's National Central Library found that a total of 4,987 publis...

2018-02-20
Theater App for Multiple Language Subtitles -

On January 16, 2017, GalaPrompter, a company based in Israel, started a service that offers translations as well as commentaries of plays and opera as real-time subtitles and voice-overs. The app’s name is GalaPro, and it is designed to be used on smartphones and tablets.

Up until now, subtitl...

2018-02-20
First Konishi Manga Award Goes to French Translation of Golden Kamuy -

In January 2017, the Konishi Foundation for International Exchange established the Manga Translation Award, an award conferred to the best French translation of a Japanese manga. Its commemorative first Award was announced in France at the end of January this year, at the 45th Angoulême Internationa...

2018-02-15
Mottainai Grandma Published in India -

On January 13, 2018, the translated first book of "Mottainai Grandma," a popular Japanese picture-book series by Mariko Shinju, was published by India’s National Book Trust as a joint project between Kodansha and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). At the book release event in New Delhi, ...

2018-02-15
Official Translation App at PyeongChang Olympics -

At the 2018 Winter Olympic Games currently taking place in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the locally-made translation app “Genie Talk” garnered attention by being selected as official software by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The app, released in 2012 and updated to realize the “first Olymp...

2018-02-13
Taiwan’s Book Fair – Similarities with Japanese Book Market -

The 26th Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) has just wrapped up at the Taipei World Trade Center. This year at the annual February event, 684 companies from 60 countries took part, an additional 63 companies from the previous year. Over a six-day period from February 6 to February 11, the e...

2018-02-13
AI-Generated Harry Potter and the Potential of AI Novels -

In December 2017, a creative community by the name of Botnik Studios became the talk of cyberspace for having created a chapter of "Harry Potter" using an artificial intelligence (AI) program. The passage was published on Botnik's website as "Chapter 13" of "Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Loo...

2018-02-08
National Book Awards Goes Global with Translated Works -

The National Book Foundation announced on January 31, 2018, that the translation category was added to the National Book Awards, one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the United States. As a result, from this year, the award has five categories: Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, Young People's ...

2018-02-08
The Quality of Machine Translation in Literary Works -

On January 19, 2018, Slator, an information site on translation services and the language industry, reported that between 17 and 34 percent of translations by neural machine translation (NMT) was of a quality on par with that of a professional human translator. The findings were in relation to a stu...

2018-02-06
Translation Events at India’s Jaipur BookMark -

The Jaipur Literature Festival, held every January in India, is said to be the largest literary festival in the world without admission fees. The Jaipur BookMark (JBM), which concurrently takes place with the Festival, is an opportunity for those in the publishing business to discuss current and fut...

2018-02-01
Amazon Original Stories: A New Imprint by Amazon U.S. -

In November 2017, Amazon Publishing (U.S.) launched its new imprint, Amazon Original Stories. It offers titles limited to Amazon in digital format, with a focus on short stories or essays that could be read in "one sitting." The pricing for each title is set at $1.99, but free for Prime members as w...

2018-01-30
Crowdfunding Towards Translation of Picture Book on History of Black Music -

A crowdfunding project is under way to publish a Japanese translation of "i see the rhythm," a picture book which tells the history of black music in the United States. If the project goes ahead, Mizuhito Kanehara will be the translator and Peter Barakan, a music critic, will oversee the process.

In November 2017, German publishing firm Verlag Herder published the German translation of a collection of waka poetry by Japanese Empress Michiko, "Nur eine kleine Maulbeere. Aber sie wog schwer (Just a little mulberry, but weighing heavily)." The translation was rendered by Peter Pantzer, professo...

2018-01-25
A Happy New Year! -

Books & Rights Marketplace wishes to express our sincere gratitude for your continued support and interest throughout the past year. We were able to introduce to our readers so many great books from around the world and to bring more authors to our network of publishers, agents and translators.

...

2018-01-18
"I Am 10 Years Old, and I Have Never Seen a Book" Published by Shanti Volunteer Association -

Shanti Volunteer Association (Shanti) in Tokyo, an organization that has been active in distributing picture books to various countries in Asia, has looked back on their overseas humanitarian activities in a new book, "I Am 10 Years Old, and I Have Never Seen a Book (provisional translation)." Shant...

2018-01-16
2018: Books on Money Management in the United States -

2017 is coming to an end. As the new year is ushered in, many of us are taking another look at our household budgets as well as asset management matters. In an article on December 1, Publishers Weekly introduced several books on the fundamentals of asset management and other practical matters, slate...

An exhibition of late manga artist Jiro Taniguchi's work, titled "L'homme qui dessine – L'univers de Jirô Taniguchi (The man who draws – The world of Jiro Taniguchi)," hosted by the Papier Foundation, is being held at Tokyo's Maison Franco-Japonaise Gallery until December 22, 2017. Taniguchi, who di...

2018-01-09
Picture Book Written by "The Dark Tower" Character On Sale in Japan Before Movie’s Release -

Stephen King is a well-known US writer of modern horror. He has produced various bestsellers that have been translated around the world, and many of his works have been made into popular movies. In Japan, in the lead-up to the movie release of "The Dark Tower" based on King's series of the same name...

From November 1, 2017, voting has been underway for the “Elementary School Kids Vote! Children’s Books Poll” hosted by Poplar Publishing, a publisher of children’s books. Many adults in Japan will be familiar with Poplar’s publications, which include “Sherlock Holmes – The complete series,” “Arsene ...

2017-12-28
Lars Kepler to be Re-published in US with New Translations -

Swedish author Lars Kepler's Joona Linna crime and mystery novels have been translated into 40 languages, with 11 million copies sold worldwide. In Japan, the first three books of the series, The Hypnotist, The Nightmare, and The Fire Witness, have been published. At the same time, a Swedish agent f...

2017-12-26
English Version of "Yuki No Renshusei" Wins Inaugural Warwick Prize -

On November 15, 2017, it was announced that "Memoirs of a Polar Bear" was selected for the inaugural Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, conferred by the University of Warwick in England. Author Yoko Tawada’s original Japanese version of the book had been published under the title of "Yuki No Re...

2017-12-21
Pictorial Books Fair: Thoughts for a Gift -

It is the season where we mull over what gifts to buy. Nippon Shuppan Hanbai Inc. (Nippan) has partnered with British publishing house, DK, as well as DK’s general distributor in Japan, to host the “Beautiful Books of DK for Giving and Receiving Fair” in nine bookstores around the country from Novem...

2017-12-19
Jin Yong’s Renowned Wuxia Novels to be Translated into English -

The Condor Trilogy, a series of wuxia (martial arts) novels by popular Hong-Kong based Chinese author Jin Yong, will be translated and published in English for the first time. In Japan, all of Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, which are extremely popular in Chinese communities around the world, have been tra...

“AI bookstore staff, meme-san”, based on software jointly developed by Tohan Corporation and sMedio, made its debut on Nov. 6, 2017, at the Book First bookstore in Shinjuku. The store is running an Agatha Christie fair at the moment, and “meme-san” will select and recommend a book from a selection ...

An article by ITmedia Business Online (November 29, 2017) featured an interview with the editor who worked on the Japanese version of the bestselling book, "Sad Animal Facts". The original English-language book by author Brooke Barker has appeared on the bestsellers lists of the New York Times and t...

Under the Japan-China cultural exchange project, “Understanding Contemporary Japan”, which started in 2009, the number of Japanese books that have been translated into Chinese and published has exceeded 100 this year. Commemorating this milestone, an event was hosted at Beijing International Hotel o...

2017-12-05
A Hotel Operated by A Bookstore: Opening in February 2018 in Nagoya -

Due to the influx of foreign tourists, the hotel industry has been growing at a brisk pace, and new hotels are being built all around Japan. Under the concept of a “hotel operated by a bookstore,” a hotel combined with a 24-hour bookstore and café will open its doors in Nagoya starting February next...

2017-11-30
Osaka's BOOK EXPO 2017: A Business Meeting for Bookstores -

On November 7, 2017, "BOOK EXPO 2017—Battle of Fall—Resound! The Soul of the Bookstore*" was held in Osaka. It's an event which is free to attend for anyone who works in a bookstore, and is a business platform aimed at bookstores, agencies, and publishers. This year marks the seventh for this event,...

The first Japanese translation of the biography "Delius as I Knew Him," depicting the last days of Fredrick Delius (1862-1934), a German-British composer known for his poetic melodies and unique harmony, has been published by Japan's Artes Publishing. The book was translated by London-based violinis...

Autumn is the season for reading in Japan. The chill in the air seems to inspire people to read books. Similarly, for writers all around the world, November is the time to actively engage in writing. This year, the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) marks its 19th year. This writing event has ...

2017-11-21
China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair -

From November 17 to 19, the fifth China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair (CCBF) will be held at Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center (SWEECC). This book fair is the only children's book fair held in Asia, and over 350 exhibits are expected from 35 countries and regions. More...

In recent years, the diminished time spent on reading books among children has become a worldwide concern not just exclusive to Japanese children. Then, what kind of an approach can we take to teach these tech-savvy kids, who are surrounded by various electronic gadgets such as tablets, smartphones ...

2017-11-14
Final Fantasy Ultimania Collection to see First English Translation -

"Final Fantasy," one of the most popular role-playing games (RPG) in the world, debuted in Japan in 1987. Since then, sequels have been launched one after another, and this February, the series made the Guinness World Records as the "Most prolific role playing game" series. Although there is a huge ...

2017-11-09
Hokusai Katsushika’s Lost Manga Goes on Sale after 200 Years -

“Hokusai’s Lost Manga”, a compilation of 178 rough sketches from three books by Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849)—an Ukiyo-e master of the Edo period—was recently published in Japan. The illustrated book, compiled by Sarah E. Thompson, Assistant Curator for Japanese Prints at the Museum of Fine Arts, B...

2017-11-07
“New Japanese Bible” on Sale after Full Revision -

If you are a translator, chances are you often use the Bible as a reference even if you are not Christian. Now, the Japanese “Shinkaiyaku Seisho (lit. Revised Translation Bible)” (Word of Life Press Ministries) has been fully revised and is on sale as the New Japanese Bible 2017. It’s the second rev...

According to BBC News, the Visit Faroes tourism organization of Faroe Islands, a self-governing archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean, launched its own unique translation service for its local language, Faroese. Unlike Google’s AI translation, the translation is provided by volunteer Faroe Islands...

2017-10-31
Google Launches Translation Earphones -

At its tech event in San Francisco on October 4, 2017, Google launched its latest smartphone, Pixel 2, along with other new hardware. In addition to the new lineup, Google introduced Pixel Buds—wireless, real-time translation headphones that are compatible with the Pixel series. Pixel Buds will go o...

Dan Brown, the author of the international bestseller The Da Vinci Code, has released his latest novel, which simultaneously went on sale around the world in 13 languages on October 3, 2017. Origin is Brown’s eighth book, and the fifth among the Robert Langdon series, which includes The Da Vinci Cod...

The "Korean Books I Want to Read in Japanese" Competition is being hosted by two entities sharing the goal of discovering promising new translators. The joint organizers are CUON, a publisher in Tokyo which specializes in introducing Korean literature to Japan, and K-BOOK Promotional Association, an...

For the three days from November 7 to November 9, 2017, the 19th Library Fair & Forum will take place at the Pacific Convention Plaza (PACIFICO) Yokohama. In terms of its scale it is the largest fair in Japan themed around libraries, and numerous parties related to library and education, as well as ...

2017-10-17
Frankfurt Book Fair 2017 -

Frankfurt Book Fair is one of the largest book fairs in the world, held in the middle of October every year in Frankfurt, Germany. The number of visitors exceeded 270,000 last year. For five days, from October 11th to the 15th, publishers from around the world will gather at this Fair which marks it...

2017-10-12
Another Smashing Hit: The 2017 Brooklyn Book Festival -

One of the largest book fairs on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard—the Brooklyn Book Festival (BKBF)—was held from September 11th to September 17th, 2017. The Festival, which takes place at the beginning of autumn every year, marked its 12th occasion this year. Tens of thousands of people descended on downt...

2017-10-10
Translation Without Borders: Leading Multilingualization Efforts during Crisis -

Translators Without Borders (TWB) is a U.S.-based non-profit organization founded in 1993. It undertakes the multilingualization of information for free to support the activities of humanitarian as well as aid organizations. TWB recently announced that it will merge its operations with The Rosetta F...

2017-10-05
Kouga Hirano and Shobunsha Exhibition in Kyoto -

From September 4, 2017, to October 24, 2017, the Kouga Hirano and Shobunsha exhibition will be held at Kyoto’s ddd Gallery. Kouga Hirano is a graphic designer, and for close to three decades, he singlehandedly designed the book covers for the publisher Shobunsha. About 600 pieces of his selected wor...

2017-10-03
Strong summer sales for independent US bookstores -

Publishers Weekly (PW) reported on September 8, 2017, that summer sales have been strong at many independent bookstores across the United States. Bookstores predict that the trend will continue into autumn, and some are forecasting a ‘double-digit increase’ in their annual sales compared to last yea...

2017-09-28
Paper-based books selling well at Amazon.com -

One Click Retail, a U.S. e-commerce company headquartered in Utah, announced on August 17 that during the period from January to June of the current fiscal year, the sales of printed books for Amazon.com U.S.—on a stand-alone basis—saw an increase by 46% compared to the same period last year. Sales ...

2017-09-26
48th Bouchercon to be held in Toronto, Canada -

Bouchercon is an annual mystery convention organized by volunteers of a non-profit organization called The World Mystery Convention. It is named after the late Anthony Boucher, who was a distinguished crime fiction author, critic and one of the founders of Mystery Writers of America. Ever since the ...

2017-09-21
‘Frankfurt Rights Meeting’ to focus on Asian licensing -

The 31st Frankfurt Rights Meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 10, 2017. The meeting this year will focus on ‘Asian licensing, social media, and the burgeoning audiobook market’, according to Publishing Perspectives. This ‘Book Fair Tuesday’ will be held on the night before the opening of Frankf...

2017-09-19
The Bookseller Children’s Conference -

The annual The Bookseller Children's Conference 2017 is to be held on September 26 at Milton Court Barbican Centre, London. The Bookseller is a British magazine reporting on news in the publishing industry.

At the event, a panel discussion is scheduled to consider additional ways to reach childr...

On August 2, 2017, The Christian Science Monitor, a Boston-based online newspaper, introduced Anna Zielińska-Elliott, professor of Japanese literature at Boston University, who has been translating Haruki Murakami’s novels into Polish for over 30 years.

Laura Ingalls Wilder was born on February 7, 1867, and this year marks the 150th year since her birth. For the anniversary, a Publishers Weekly article picked up two new publications for 2017. One of them is a book titled ‘Pioneer Girl Perspectives: Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder’, which looks at th...

2017-09-05
Women in Translation Month 2017 -

August is ‘Women in Translation (WIT) Month’. According to an article from The Forward, this initiative was started in 2014 by Meytal Radzinski, an Israeli grad student in biology who spent her childhood in California. WIT is a movement which promotes awareness of the disparity between the number of...

2017-08-31
New Maurice Sendak picture book to be posthumously published -

A new picture book titled ‘Presto and Zesto in Limboland’ by famous American illustrator and writer Maurice Sendak, who died in 2012, will be posthumously published in 2018 according to Publishers Weekly. Arthur Yorinks, the co-author of this book, explained that the book started as illustrations dr...

2017-08-29
70 Years since the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl -

This year is 70 years since Otto Frank published the original Dutch version of his daughter Anne’s diary (English title: The Diary of a Young Girl). The book has been translated into more than 70 languages since publication. The first Japanese publication in 1952 was a translation from the English v...

2017-08-24
Iran Guest of Honor at BIBF 2017 -

The 24th edition of BIBF (Beijing International Book Fair) will be held from August 23 to 27 this year at the New China International Exhibition Center (NCIEC). This year’s guest of honor is, from the official website, ‘the “Islamic Republic of Iran”, also known as “Persia” in ancient times.’ Iran’s...

2017-08-22
Libraries in US Need More Young Adult Books -

An article by Lynn Miller-Lachmann, an author and translator, regarding her presentation at the American Library Association (ALA)'s Annual Conference appeared in The Times Union website dated July 17, 2017 (and in her personal blog dated July 9, 2017), in which she addressed the need for American l...

2017-08-17
‘SnapChat generation’ reading on smartphone apps -

According to TechCrunch, the ‘SnapChat generation’, or teenagers who have grown up swiping at smartphones and tablets since they were toddlers, are now eagerly reading fiction on their smartphones through popular apps. The earliest 'chat fiction' app, called Hooked, started providing material in the...

2017-08-15
Amazon to offer machine-translation service to clients -

CNBC reported on June 26, 2017, that Amazon is preparing to make its machine-translation technology available to clients of its Amazon Web Service (AWS). The service could be announced before Amazon’s annual re:Invent conference in November, the report claims.

Amazon has been using this technolo...

2017-08-10
Japanese students may learn from LGBT books -

In March this year, an online survey conducted by Takarazuka University professor Yasuharu Hidaka found that nearly 60 percent of people of a sexual minority had been bullied at school. Japan’s ministry of education urged better awareness of the issue, distributing pamphlets in April 2015 to educati...

2017-08-08
Japanese picture books published in Vietnam -

As part of the Mogu Bookworm Project, organized by More Production Vietnam Co., Ltd, a media coordination company based in Hanoi, three Japanese picture books have recently been translated and published in Vietnam. On June 30, 2017, a reception was held to celebrate the release of the books. The tit...

2017-08-03
Anniversary of Jonathan Swift – Swift350 -

Throughout 2017, Dublin is celebrating the 350th anniversary of the birth of Jonathan Swift, the most popular author in the Republic of Ireland. At Trinity College Dublin (The University of Dublin), events have been taking place to celebrate the birth of the author who wrote ‘Gulliver's Travels'. Th...

BookTrust, a UK literacy charity promoting reading among children, is running a competition to sponsor sample translations for up to ten non-English children’s fiction books. The competition, funded by Art Council England, is called In Other Words and was started last year to promote the publication...

2017-07-27
Digital picture books effective especially for toddlers -

It is known that children who are read to by their carers are more eager to learn and to gain new knowledge. However, whether it is better to use digital picture books or traditional printed books is still yet to be confirmed.

Patricia A. Ganea of Canada's University of Toronto may have the answ...

2017-07-25
Hong Kong International Book fair 2017 -

The 28th Hong Kong Book Fair is to be held between July 19 and 25, 2017, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. This is the biggest book fair in Hong Kong, and in 2016 saw a record of close to 1,020,000 visitors. The exhibitors include government and public bodies which actively promote ...

2017-07-20
Sharjah is World Book Capital for 2019 -

UNESCO's director-general Irina Bokova has announced that Sharjah has been selected as the World Book Capital for the year 2019. According to Publishing Perspectives, the advisory committee of the World Book Capital program met at the headquarters of the International Federation of Library Associati...

2017-07-18
Japanese Fukushima poet wins French poetry prize -

A French translation of ‘Shi no Tsubute (Jets de poèmes, Pebbles of Poetry)’, a collection of poetic tweets by Ryoichi Wago, won a newly established French poetry prize on June 10, 2017. ‘Shi no Tsubute’, published by Tokuma Shoten in 2011, was translated into French and published in France by PO &...

At BookExpo 2017, Lance Fensterman, vice president of ReedPOP which organizes events such as BookExpo, BookCon, and Comic Con, spoke to the audience about his vision for BookExpo’s future. ‘We really want BookExpo to continue to be a vibrant and focused and very high-level, business-to-business plat...

2017-07-11
Kyoko Nakajima’s ‘The Little House’ to be published in English -

The Bookseller reported on June 1, 2017, that an English translation of Kyoko Nakajima’s ‘The Little House’, winner of the 143rd Naoki Prize in 2010, will be published in 2018. London-based Darf Publishers obtained the English publishing rights for this novel which will be translated by Ginny Tapley...

Translated into 79 different languages and known worldwide, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” will be celebrating its 20th anniversary since first being published on June 26, 1997. British publisher Bloomsbury announced special editions for this first book of the Harry Potter series, with c...

2017-07-04
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ graphic novel to be published in 2018 -

In June 2017, it was announced that a project to create a graphic novel adaptation of Harper Lee’s 1960 novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, was underway. The novel deals with the complexity of people and society in a small town in Alabama, when racial discrimination was still very common. The graphic no...

2017-06-29
‘Monkey Business’ a hybrid space for Japanese & English literature -

On May 3, 2017, the seventh issue of literary journal ‘Monkey Business’ was launched at the Asia Society in New York, USA, by the journal’s founders/editors Motoyuki Shibata and Ted Goossen. Originally started by Shibata as a Japanese magazine in 2008, Monkey Business was re-launched in 2011 as an i...

2017-06-27
UN adopts International Translation Day -

On May 24, 2017, the United Nations General Assembly declared September 30 to be UN International Translation Day (ITD). The day was adopted as part of a draft resolution called ‘The role of professional translation in connecting nations and fostering peace, understanding and development’. ITD was f...

2017-06-22
EU looks set to reduce ebook tax -

On June 1, 2017, the European Parliament voted on a proposal to enable individual EU countries to reduce the VAT (Value Added Tax, or a goods and services tax) rate on electronic books. The motion was passed in Parliament, and EU member states may soon be able to bring the VAT for ebooks in line wit...

2017-06-20
Icelandic ‘Dracula’ a whole other story -

Last Friday, May 26, was the annual World Dracula Day, and fans and scholars celebrated the day on which Count Dracula had come into the world 120 years ago. The novel ‘Dracula’ was published in England in 1897 by Irish author Bram Stoker, and since then, many translations, related literature, stage...

2017-06-15
Japanese eBook distributer to develop AI translator -

Japanese eBook distributor Media Do Co., Ltd has officially announced that it will promote a business alliance with Internet Research Institute (IRI), Inc. and A.I. Squared, Inc., of the IRI Group, to develop an artificial intelligence-based translation technology. A.I. Squared and IRI respectively ...

2017-06-13
BookExpo America 2017 -

BookExpo America, the biggest book fair in the USA, will be held between May 31 and June 2, 2017, at Javits Center in New York City. Apart from exhibitions by book industry professionals from around the world, BookExpo offers an abundance of special events to promote new publications or new authors....

The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize is the only one of its kind in the UK, given to the funniest comic writing of the year. It has been confirmed that Helen Fielding will be receiving it for the fourth book in her well-known Bridget Jones series, ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’, for which a movie of the s...

2017-06-06
Books by Japanese Business Leaders popular in China -

Bestselling books by Japanese business leaders are favored by Chinese readers, reported Mainichi Newspaper on May 8, 2017. In recent years, the Chinese book market has seen a rise in popularity of Japanese books on leaders in various fields or books written by top executives.

The book that has b...

2017-06-01
Amazon UK’s £20,000 ‘Kindle Storyteller Award’ -

Amazon UK announced an award with a prize of 20,000 British pounds (approximately 25,826 US dollars) for self-publishers. The ‘Kindle Storyteller Award’ is welcoming entries from applicants over 18 from February 20 to May 19, 2017, for unpublished stories that are at least 5,000 words long and in En...

2017-05-30
Small New York publisher introduces great foreign books to America -

A five-year-old, small New York publisher specializing in translated books is increasing its sales in a period when book businesses are said to be facing a tough time. New Vessel Press was founded in 2012 by Michael Wise, a former correspondent for Reuters, and Ross Ufberg, then a Ph.D. candidate at...

2017-05-25
Honorary Appreciation for Japanese Encyclopedia -

The Japanese ‘Encyclopedia of Modern Sport’ (Taishukan Publishing Co., Ltd) won an Honorary Appreciation in the ‘Best Book Design from all over the World‘ competition organized by Stiftung Buchkunst (Book Art Foundation). The 600 or so books from 32 countries entered in this competition were display...

2017-05-23
Russian professor disseminates haiku around the world -

Alexander Dolin, Professor Emeritus at Akita International University (AIU), is a Japanese literature scholar. He is also an author and a Japanese–Russian translator/interpreter. In a recent interview by ‘Russia Now’, he talks about Russian translation of Japanese poetry.

Marie Kondo (often referred to by the nickname Konmari), author of ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up’ which sold more than 7 million copies worldwide, released a new manga version of the decluttering book in Japan this February. Illustrated by Yuko Uramoto, it was published by Sunmark Publishin...

2017-05-16
Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2017 -

The 27th Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (ADIBF) is to be held from April 26 to May 2, 2017, at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, Abu Dhabi, UAE. The organizer expects 1320 exhibitors from 65 countries, which is a record number for participation. The number of visitors last year was more than ...

2017-05-11
100,000+ BuzzFeed cookbooks sold in two months -

BuzzFeed Inc., an internet media company, started sharing videos via Facebook from May 2015, and these clips are reaching a very large audience. In particular, the ‘Tasty’ series in its cooking category has become extremely popular. This led to BuzzFeed publishing ‘Tasty – The Cookbook’ in November ...

2017-05-09
Arabic edition of Captain Tsubasa to be sent to Syrian refugees -

An Arabic edition of the popular Japanese comic ‘Captain Tsubasa’ has been published by Kinokuniya Company Ltd and is being sold since January this year. Shueisha Inc., the publisher of the original Japanese version, bought 1000 volumes each of the new comic editions to donate to Syrian refugees th...

2017-05-04
IPA releases 2017 Report as calendar of book fairs -

The world’s largest federation of national, regional and specialist publishers' associations, the International Publishers Association (IPA) released its ‘Global Book Fair Report’ on April 4, 2017. Book fair attendees and participants can utilize this report as a calendar of international book fairs...

2017-05-02
2016 US Children’s Bestsellers dominated by series and movie tie-ins -

Publishers Weekly has announced its 2016 Facts and Figures compilation of children’s bestsellers in the US. The list included a wide range of titles but comprises many series and movie tie-ins, such as J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,’ which came first in the hardcover frontlist. ...

2017-04-27
Japanese added to Skype Translator -

Microsoft has announced the addition of Japanese to its translation services starting from April 7, 2017. This support extends to Skype Translator, and enables Skype users who do not speak Japanese themselves to convert their conversation into Japanese in real time. Japanese is the tenth language to...

2017-04-25
Browse for books and magazines at HALLOM -

A new service that offers readers an introduction to the content of books and magazines was started on April 3, 2017. Individual publishers have been offering similar services, but this is the first such collective service offered in Japan. The website, HALLOM, is directed mainly at women in their 2...

2017-04-20
JBBY decides on 2017 English book list -

In January 2017, JBBY (Japan Board on Books for Young People) decided on this year's selection of books for its English-language book list. Planned for a spring release, this book list of Japanese children's books will be delivered to various international venues such as international book fairs and...

2017-04-18
Amazon Japan to increase direct dealing with publishers -

Nikkei.com reported on March 22, 2017, that Amazon Japan will increase direct dealings with publishers and minimize the involvement of distributors. Amazon’s plan is to collect books and magazines directly from the publishers and stock them at its newly built delivery center. This is expected to sho...

2017-04-13
Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2017 -

From April 3 to 6, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair will take place in Bologna, Italy. Each year, the fair produces a catalogue, Illustrators Annual, featuring a selection of art submitted to the fair’s Illustrators Exhibition. The 2017 Illustrators Annual cover is drawn by German illustrator Rotrau...

2017-04-11
Hindi/English version of ‘Mottainai Grandma’ picture books to be published in India -

A Hindi/English bilingual version of the ‘Mottainai Grandma’ series of Japanese picture books will be published in India this year. On March 16, a book-reading event was held in the Indian Capital of New Delhi to mark the start of the printing project.

The book-reading was co-sponsored by Kodans...

2017-04-06
Insurance support for freelancers in Japan -

According to a research by Lancers.co.jp, the number of Japanese freelance workers exceeded 10 million last year, a 17% increase compared to the previous year. Comparatively, the increase ratio in the US was 2% during the same period, and is now 55 million. This is 35% of the total US workers.

In...

2017-04-04
2017 Paris Book Fair (Livre Paris) -

The 37th Paris Book Fair (Livre Paris) will take place from March 24th to March 27th at Porte de Versailles, France. Focusing on books which appeal to the general public, this book fair is a major cultural event in France. Livre Paris attracts nearly 150,000 visitors around the world, who gather to ...

2017-03-30
Subscription service may be future model for bookstores -

For almost 16 years, ‘Politics & Prose’, a bookshop in Washington D.C., has been using its curatorial expertise to select and send books to its book club members. Children are the main subscribers, but there are also a few adults looking for books in the young adult category. As of 2017 March there ...

2017-03-28
London Book Fair 2017 -

The 2017 London Book Fair (LBF) is to be held at the Olympia London event venue in West Kensington, London from March 14 to March 16. This year marks the fair’s 46th anniversary. Considered to be the second largest book fair after Frankfurt Book Fair, LBF is also one of the most prominent events i...

2017-03-23
ALDUS’ report on European book fairs -

Supported by the European Union’s ‘Creative Europe Program’, the ALDUS European Book Fairs’ Network has released research results of European book fairs and has classified them into two categories. One is for book fairs of B2B (business to business) purposes, and the other for those of domestic purp...

Bungeishunju Ltd announced last month that the late Sakyo Komatsu’s 1977 short story, ‘America’s Wall’, was to be republished on February 10, 2017. The publisher claims this title has been much talked about since the US election last year. Some comment that the story could have been a prophecy of c...

2017-03-16
‘BOOK AND BED’ now with ‘BAR’ -

‘BOOK AND BED TOKYO’, a concept hostel produced by R-STORE Ltd as an ‘accommodation bookshop’, reopened on January 21, 2017, after undergoing renovations. The original seventh floor ‘BOOK AND BED’ in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro was expanded to incorporate a bar area in the floor above, making it a place where...

2017-03-14
Latvian Book Fair 2017 -

From February 24 to 26, the Latvian Book Fair 2017 will be held in Latvia’s capital, Riga, the largest city in the Baltic states. The venue for the 20th instalment of this International Book and Publishers Exhibition is the Ķīpsala International Exhibition Centre.

Japan and Latvia re-established ...

2017-03-09
Peking University Students Are Fond of Keigo Higashino, Research Says -

A statistical analysis by Peking University Library shows that when its students aren't reading course-assigned books about politics and economics, they are showing a preference for the Japanese thriller and mystery author, Keigo Higashino. The report found that Higashino’s “Mysterious Night” (Tradi...

2017-03-07
Donald Trump Causes Headaches for Translators -

One month has passed since Donald Trump took office as the President of the United States. There are several reports about translators (and interpreters) who are struggling to translate or interpret his speeches. The Independent Online on January 21, 2017 tells of a French translator, Bérengère Vi...

2017-03-02
Taipei International Book Exhibition 2017 -

The 25th Taipei International Book Exhibition was held from February 8 to 13, 2017. Taiwanese artist Akibo Lee created an installation for the event: a giant formed from a wooden frame and more than 2000 donated books, said to represent a moving force of books that would instigate change. After the ...

2017-02-28
Wearable translation device ‘ili’ launched -

Japanese tech company Logbar Inc. has officially announced their wearable translation device ‘ili’ at the ‘ili Unveiled’ launch event on 31 January, 2017. Logbar will start ‘ili for Guest’, a corporate service that includes the ili device, from June 2017.

ili is a speech translation device that ...

2017-02-23
Canada guest of honor at Havana International Book Fair 2017 -

The 26th Havana International Book Fair will be held over February 9-19, 2017, with an expected attendance of 600,000 people. 35 countries will be participating from all over the world and Canada has been announced as the guest of honor. The Canadian government states that 1.39 million Canadians go ...

2017-02-21
TSUTAYA brings new lifestyle ‘Book Café’ to Taiwan -

TSUTAYA Co., Ltd, the largest movie and music rental and bookshop chain in Japan, has opened a ‘book café’ in Taipei, Taiwan. The new TSUTAYA Bookstore located in the trend-setting Xinyi shopping district is promoted as offering a ‘lifestyle’ where people enjoy books while sipping coffee, reports Th...

In January 2017, Google updated its ‘Google Translate’ smartphone app (iOS/Android) to enable immediate text translation to and from Japanese. The app displays translations on the screen when app users hold their smartphone camera up to some text. The real-time camera translation mode, offered by Go...

2017-02-16
UK Children’s Commissioner drafts Instagram terms of service for children -

The UK Children’s Commissioner has released a rewritten version of Instagram’s Terms of Use that is aimed at children. In the UK, Instagram is overwhelmingly popular among children aged 13 or younger. It is said that more than half of children aged 12-15 and 43% of those aged 8-11 are using Instagra...

2017-02-09
English version of ‘Ronja’ anime series to start on Amazon -

From January 27, 2017, Amazon will start showing an English version of the Japanese television series ‘Sanzoku no Musume Rônya (Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter)’ on its US and UK websites. The animated series, produced in 2014 by Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), was directed by Goro Miyazaki and i...

One year has passed since the republication of ‘Mein Kampf’, an autobiographical book by Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany. Until recently, the German state of Bavaria owned the copyright for ‘Mein Kampf’, prohibiting its reprinting in Germany. However, when copyright expired at the end of ...

2017-02-02
Canadian black market for Murakami books? -

It may be interesting to know that books by a Japanese author are currently one of the most popular targets for book thieves in Canada. According to an online CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) News report, there is apparently a thriving black market for stolen Haruki Murakami books in Toronto,...

2017-01-31
Rakuten Kobo to buy German e-reader platform -

Rakuten Kobo Inc., a Canadian-based subsidiary of the Rakuten Group and an e-reader platform operator, has announced the acquisition of an e-reader platform system from Deutsche Telekom, the leading telecommunication provider in Germany. Specifics have not yet been released, but it is estimated that...

2017-01-26
Kolkata International Book Fair - Concerns as new publications down -

The 41st Kolkata International Book Fair (KIBF) will be inaugurated on January 25, 2016, in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, at the Milan Mela exhibition site. It is a twelve-day event which boasts around 2.5 million footfalls every year, and is known as the largest book fair in the world. Its theme cou...

2017-01-24
UK translation agency recruiting “Emoji Translator" -

Today Translations, a major London-based translation agency, is recruiting an “Emoji Translator” for a new specialist position. Details are currently available on their website.

Text messages are an excellent internet-based communication tool. On the other hand, one aspect of this type of commun...

2017-01-19
Audiobook popularity sees rapid rise in two years -

The market of the ‘audiobook’ – books which can be enjoyed through listening – is growing rapidly. In the past, audiobooks had been available in Japan, but didn’t become popular because they were more expensive than paper books. However, as the use of smartphone devices become the norm, people can n...

2017-01-17
How will textbooks change? London FutureBook Conference 2016 -

Enthusiasts of ed-tech (education technology) gathered earlier in December at London’s 2016 FutureBook Conference to listen to talks about how current and future text books used in classrooms or at home may be changed to a digital format.

Tom Hall of Pearson, the world’s largest education compan...

2017-01-17
Global literary agent stresses to Japanese publishers importance of delivering in English -

Neil Gudovitz, founder of the Gudovitz & Company Literary Agency based in Brooklyn, New York, is a foreign rights agent who presents books from Japan and other Asian countries to the rest of the world. Gudovitz recently attracted attention at the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair where he introduced “Hibana”...

2017-01-17
Happy New Year! -

Books & Rights Marketplace wishes to express our sincere gratitude for your continued support and interest in 2016. Our website has been bringing our readers great books from around the world to Japan, and vice versa. We strive to introduce more interesting books to publishers, agents and translator...

2017-01-10
KDDI begins “automatic translation” taxi trial -

In November 2015, Japanese telecommunications company KDDI Corporation (KDDI) started trialing automatic translation systems in taxis to translate conversations between the taxi user and taxi driver. From December 20 this year, KDDI began a new trial with taxis in Tokyo. The trial will continue to M...

2017-01-05
Japanese magazines sell less than books for the first time in 41 years -

Sales of magazines are projected to fall below book sales for the first time in decades, TOKYO Web reported. The Research Institute for Publications in Tokyo, Japan, released figures showing an estimated 7.7 percent drop in publication sales from the previous year (excluding electronic publications)...

Impress R&D announced that individuals can now publish paper comic books through its “POD (print on demand) publishing service for authors”. Authors can distribute comic books published through the service on Amazon.co.jp.

Impress R&D launched its “POD publishing service for authors” on October ...

2016-12-29
Japanese publisher ventures into Thai -

Japanese publisher Kadokawa Corporation, which is continuously exploring new areas to expand its media content, started a joint venture with a Thai publisher following its investments in Taiwan, China, Malaysia, and the United States. It formed Kadokawa Amarin Co. Ltd. with Amarin Printing and Publi...

2016-12-27
Two pet cats in sumo stable featured by four publishers -

Four books regarding Moru (from the Mongolian muur meaning cat) and Mugi, two pet cats which live in the Arashio-beya sumo stable in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, have been published by four different publishers since early October 2016. It is unusual that different publishers happened to release books featuri...

2016-12-22
"Ko-johruri" to be performed next June in Britain thanks to Donald Keene -

In 1962, the last known original copy of “Kouchi Houin Godenki”, a Japanese "Ko-johruri" book, was discovered at the British Museum by Bunzo Torigoe, now professor emeritus at Waseda University. A German doctor, Engelbert Kaempfer, had taken the book out of Japan about 300 years ago in the Genroku e...

In September 2016, Google announced that Google Translate switched from a phrase-based machine translation system to a neural machine translation system it calls the “Google Neural Machine Translation (GNMT) system”. The new machine translation system improves translation quality for many languages ...

2016-12-15
Guadalajara Book Fair taken as chance by Brazil Publishers -

The Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) is being held through November 26th to December 4th at the Expo Guadalajara convention center in Mexico. The importance of this book fair for Spanish-speaking countries is widely known, and although it attracts fewer attendees than Buenos Aires’s book fa...

2016-12-13
J-TALK: Japan’s first interpreting service for personal use -

In the final quarter of 2015, BeMap Inc., a company that conducts mobile system integration for infrastructure such as railways in Japan, launched its J-TALK interpreting service. This service includes the first ever interpreting service in Japan aimed at personal use.

J-TALK’s unique feature l...

2016-12-08
AR books popular at China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair -

The China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair 2016 (CCBF) was held at Shanghai World Center from November 18 to 20. The number of exhibitors has almost doubled from 154 to 300 since its first installment in 2013. This year’s 4th edition of the fair saw the addition of a new Digital Discovery...

Panasonic Corporation, a major Japanese electronics manufacturer, is rapidly advancing the development of its automatic audio translation devices.

The company is currently developing three different types of automatic audio translation devices: A megaphone-type device that can be used to make an...

2016-12-01
Record Visitor Numbers at Sharjah International Book Fair -

The 35th Edition of the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) was held in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, from November 2, 2016, to November 12, 2016. It was announced that visitor numbers reached 2.3 million, the largest in the history of SIBF and twice as many compared to last year’s attendance. 1...

V-cube, Inc., a Japanese company which provides an online conferencing service, announced the implementation of an automatic real-time speech recognition and translation functionality in their online conference service, “V-CUBE Meeting 5”, on November 3, 2016. Presently, this service is available as...

2016-11-24
Steidl Book Award Japan -

Billing itself as the largest art book fair in Asia, the 8th Tokyo Art Book Fair 2016 was held in September in Kita-Aoyama, Tokyo. As this year’s special exhibition, the fair has collaborated with the internationally reputable German publisher Steidl and established the “Steidl Book Award Japan”. A ...

Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP), the largest printing company in Japan, has announced their sponsorship of Japan Digital Library Service Co., Ltd (JDLS), which operates in the area of digital library services.

JDLS, established by three companies Kodansha Ltd., Kadokawa Corporation and Kinok...

2016-11-17
Big Data Shows Co-authorship in 17 Shakespeare Plays -

William Shakespeare, England’s national poet and playwright, also called the“Bard of Avon”, co-authored eight of his works; this was what researchers presumed back in 1986. However, in a new release of the Bard’s publication it has been stated that an additional nine, or a total of 17 plays, had bee...

On October 18th, iVacation, the homestay agent company announced that they started doing experiment demonstrations with NTT DOCOMO on “TATERU Phone”. They are developing the IoT device for lodgers.

“TATERU Phone” is an IoT device that iVacation lends to homestay service users for free, and the d...

2016-11-10
The Last Bookstore” in Downtown Los Angeles -

With this ironic “The Last Bookstore” name, the mission now lies is in keeping books printed with ink on paper alive in this era of e-readers and digital downloads. This bookstore has now become the world’s largest independent bookstore.

Vision Inc. announced that they would start a rental service of the wearable translation device “ili” beginning from the spring of 2017. The rental service became a reality because Vision Inc. formed a business alliance with Lobar Inc., the development company of “ili”, and became an official busine...

2016-11-03
Bob Dylan wins Nobel prize in literature -

The Sweden Academy announced on October 13th that the 2016 Nobel prize on literature has been awarded to 75-year-old singer Bob Dylan of the United States. The rock legend and singer/song writer who has influenced a great many, received the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the...

"Shaberi-Gaki (Talk and Draw) UI (User Interface)" developed by Mitsubishi Electronic Corporation, appeared at CEATEC JAPAN 2016 held in early October. The electronics show and COM JAPAN were combined and became CEATEC JAPAN in 2000. It has been one of the biggest IT technology exhibitions in Asia.V...

2016-10-27
Deep Learning adopted to Google Translation -

On September 27th, Google Inc. announced the development of the “Google Neural Machine Translation（GNMT）”, their new translation system utilizing deep learning technology.
Google Inc. has adopted the “Phrase Based Machine Translation” （PBMT）system in the past that separates sentences into words an...

2016-10-25
The 68th Frankfurt Book Fair -

Starting from Wednesday, October 19th until its closing on Sunday the 23rd, the Frankfurt Book Fair will be held in Germany, at Messe Frankfurt. This year, the Netherlands and Flanders are the guests of honor. The largest fair of the publishing industry attracts many visitors. Last year it had been ...

2016-10-21
Book made by Artificial Intelligence launches -

On August 24th, QueryEye, the AI company in Japan launched an eBook called “Kenjin Kourin” that their artificial intelligence “Zero” had generated.

“Kenjin Kourin” is an eBook that QueryEye made and “Zero” produced after it had learned the writings of Yukichi Fukuzawa and Inazo Nitobe （Both were...

As of August 2016, 40 million players are actively playing Pokemon GO every day according to Bloomberg. Now a Belgian elementary school’s headmaster, Ms. Aveline Gregoire is taking cues from the success of this game, and has started her own book searching game. Unlike Pokemon GO which was developed ...

2016-10-12
Kindle Unlimited caught in the pandemonium -

On October 5th, on the Japanese live broad streaming service “Nico Nico Live”, a live talk show in which famous journalists and lawyers in Japan talked about Kindle Unlimited was broadcasted on air.

2016-10-11
Panasonic plans to launch a megaphone-type translation machine by the end of 2016 -

The megaphone-type translation machine called “Megaphoneyaku” that Panasonic has developed will be launched by the end of 2016.
Its price has not been established yet, but the Megaphoneyaku is expected to be used in times of emergency for evacuation purposes or for big scale events.

Megaphoney...

2016-10-06
23rd Tokyo International Book Fair -

The 23rd Tokyo International Book Fair (TIBF) kicks off on September 23rd at the Tokyo Big Sight, (West hall) Japan, mainly to promote book reading for the public. It continues running for 3 days, and is expected to have over 40 thousand book lovers come to visit, view, and purchase from over 1 mill...

2016-10-04
Online translation company “YARAKU” forms capital and business alliance with big firms in Japan -

On September 5th, YARAKU, Inc., which has run an online translation tool “YarakuZen”, announced that YARAKU would form a capital oriented partnership with three big firms like KONIKA MINOLTA.

YarakuZen is a service for being used in translating business documents such as mail and presentation m...

2016-09-30
Unpublished Short Stories of Scott Fitzgerald Due to be Released Next Spring -

F Scott Fitzgerald is known to be the author of “The Great Gatsby” (published in 1925), which makes him one of the best writers of American literature in the twentieth century. His unpublished short stories are due to be released from Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster titled “I’d Die For You”...

2016-09-27
Megaphoneyaku adopted for the first time to the general emergency drill in Tokyo -

“Megaphoneyaku”, the automated translation machine Panasonic developed was adopted to the general emergency drill in Tokyo for the first time on September 4th.

Megaphoneyaku is a loudspeaker that can translate Japanese into three languages such as English, Chinese, and Korean if you’re speaking ...

2016-09-23
Japanese Bookstore Strives to Sell More Books Internationally -

In August, the Kinokuniya Bookstore closed the 1st floor all the way to the 5th floor of its Shinjuku South Store which sold Japanese books, and left the 6th floor which has reopened as Books Kinokuniya Tokyo (BKT), mainly operating to sell foreign books, to be “a standalone international bookshop r...

2016-09-20
Amazon.com establishes Kindle Reading Fund -

Amazon.com announced the establishment of a new fund called the “Kindle Reading Fund”. Its purpose lies in the fact that people all over the world will become able to more easily utilize eBooks. In order to accomplish this, Amazon.com is cooperating with partner organizations around the world and th...

This year, the 24th São Paulo International Book Biennial will be held from August 26th to September 4th at the Anhembi Convention Center. The book fair takes place only once every two years in this city.

In fact, Brazil is one of seven markets selected as “the most dynamic market” at the “THE M...

2016-09-13
Educational content accounts for 70% of the Chinese Book Market -

The 23rd edition of the Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF) kicked off on August 24th, with more than 300,000 titles on display, 1,379 overseas exhibitors, and 16 Central and Eastern European countries as guests of honor.

This fair shows its clear interest of the educational book market which...

2016-09-08
A new multi-copy service of coterie magazines launched -

Seven-Eleven Japan, the biggest distribution company in Japan has launched a new service of their multi-copy machine.

The new copy service is made so that users can publish coterie magazines using Seven-Eleven’s multi-copy machine. Its special feature lies in that users can produce coterie magaz...

2016-09-06
Computers might predict bestsellers in the near future -

A book about computers predicting bestselling books will be published in the near the future in the United States. The book is very interesting for those who are engaged in the publishing world, but at this time the book has already polarized opinions.

This book, which is said to grasp the secre...

2016-09-01
2016 Shanghai Book Fair Opens on August 17th -

The 2016 Shanghai Book Fair will be held from Wednesday August 17th to 23rd at the Shanghai Exhibition Center (SEC), Jing'an District in China. Its opening hours are from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (10 p.m. on the weekend) and is set up long enough for various events to be planned for both the daytime and nig...

2016-08-30
Where will Amazon Unlimited go from here in the future? -

Amazon the largest Internet mail-order company launched “Kindle unlimited” on August 3rd in Japan. You can read about 120,000 eBooks including comics as much as you like for 980 yen per month through the service.

While some netizens welcome the service, other netizens are worried about the futur...

2016-08-26
Facebook Announces Additional Translation Feature -

It is Facebook’s mission to connect people worldwide as a SNS, to remove language barriers has lead the company to announce on July 1st its newly added feature known as the “multilingual composer”. User accounts can be selected from 45 languages to be set to be translated. (If the translated text do...

2016-08-26
The latest book in the “Harry Potter” series is now out in the world! -

“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”, the theatrical play of the “Harry Potter Series” was turned into a book and put on sale on July 31st everywhere in the world. The article states that the latest book might become a bestseller in 2016 because of the number of pre-orders made.

The “Harry Potter...

2016-08-19
Japan: Akutagawa Award Winners Are Boosting Book Sales -

In 2016 July, the Japanese biannual book award 155th Akutagawa Prize was given to a work of fiction titled "Konbini Ningen" (meaning "Convenience Store Woman"), written by Sayaka Murata, who is actually working as a part time worker at a convenience store in real life. This prize which honors Ryunos...

2016-08-16
A real-time translation service to help foreigners -

It is expected that the number of foreigners in Japan will increase considerably in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics & Paralympics. Microsoft Japan, Toyohashi University of Technology and BroadBand tower, Inc. decided to cooperate with each other for the sake of the realization of a real-time translation ser...

The Bronte Society, England has acquired The Remains of Henry Kirk White by Robert Southy (1807), which is a book that was once owned by Maria Bronte who is known as the mother of the early Victorian writers, the Bronte sisters. The book has added great value as it contains an unpublished manuscript...

2016-08-09
Big Japanese publishers get in on “Amazon Unlimited” -

It turns out that big Japanese publishers such as Koudansha Ltd. and Shogakukan Ltd. will provide their works to “Kindle Unlimited”, the all-you-can-read service Amazon Japan plans to launch in August. Although they first launched with a focus on old works featuring books and comics, they plan to pr...

2016-08-04
Animate Bangkok’s Effort -

Japanese manga and animation have been popular overseas. However, as they became popular with foreign countries, the pirated edition that is in violation of the producer’s copyrights began to be distributed in large quantities in the market. At the moment, this has become a big challenge to promote ...

A WEB comic magazine “Pixiv Essay” launched on June 13th. This web magazine was a result of the collaboration between Pixiv（The biggest Japanese online community for artists）and KADOKAWA（One of the biggest Japanese publishers）. The genre with which the magazine deals with is “Essay comics”, based on...

2016-07-29
2016 Hong Kong Book Fair -

The 2016 Hong Kong Book Fair will be held at the Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Center（HKCEC）during July 20th to July 26th. The book fair was first held in 1990, and will celebrate its 27th anniversary. 580 companies and organizations exhibited their works from 30 countries and areas in last ye...

2016-07-27
“Digital first, Book last” Introducing a new approach -

Impress R&D, the Japanese publisher that runs an eBook publishing business has made unique efforts in the publishing industry in Japan. The company has improved the distribution environment of books with “Print on Demand”（POD）: The company publishes eBooks first, and then binds and sells the printed...

2016-07-22
New Subscription Service Looks Ready to Start in Japan -

Online retail giant Amazon started an eBook subscription model service dubbed Kindle unlimited in the United States in 2014. Now, reports indicate this Kindle unlimited shall be available soon in Japan, starting this August. The monthly subscription fee is said to be 980 yen, which enables one to do...

“The Tokyo Art Book Fair", which specializes in art books has established a new book award known as the “Steidl Book Award Japan”. The committee is now calling for entries.

“The Tokyo Art book Fair” is going to be held from September 16th to September 19th at the Gaien Campus of Kyoto University...

2016-07-14
Peru’s International Book Fair -

The 21st Lima International Book Fair will be held during July 15th to July 31st in Peru, in the district of Jesus Maria. Jean- Marie Gustave Le Clezio will be the guest of honor to appear at the Book Fair. The French Embassy in Peru and the Peruvian Book Chamber has been attributed to having this f...

Mr. Hideo Honda, who is the former physical education school teacher and has made it his life to put together dictionaries of sports terms, published “the Summer Olympics multilingual dictionary” from Sankei-Sha. The book consists of five volumes and is compatible with six languages, such as Japanes...

2016-07-07
eBook sales declined in the U.S. -

The Association of American Publishers announced a decline in eBook sales by 14% in 2015 as compared to the previous year. Also eBooks were 20% of the total books sold in 2015, and this also declined from the 23% of the previous year. Publishing consultant company, Codex Group (Head quarter: New Yor...

2016-07-05
Unofficial visual tribute to the NES from Kickstarter -

A crowd-funding campaign on ”Kickstarter" to publish a tabletop book featuring the “Family computer（Famicom）” and “Nintendo Entertainment System（NES）” by Nintendo has begun. The concept of the book is introduced on the video in the campaign article.

“Famicom” was launched by Nintendo in Japan in...

2016-06-30
Seoul International Book Fair (SIBF)2016 -

SIBF (Seoul International Book Fair) 2016 starts from June 15th to June 19th at COEX in Hall A, COEX, Seoul, Republic of Korea, and has been hosted by the Korean Publishers Association since 1995. The fair will begin with the poetry reading of Ms. Shin Dal-ja, a renowned poet who has been selected a...

2016-06-28
A wearable device that can translate finger language into speech and text -

The undergraduates of the university of Washington developed “SignAloud”, a glove-type wearable device that translates sign language into speech. Speech devices that can translate sign language have already been developed, but to translate sign language into speech, a device needs to involve image i...

2016-06-23
Audiobook Sales Soaring in the U.S. -

According to an Audio Publishers Association (APA) survey, audiobook sales in 2015 rose 20% over 2014 to an estimated 1.78 billion dollars in the U.S. In order to meet customer’s demands, publishers are keen to release as many audiobook titles as possible.

According to the APA survey, in which 2...

2016-06-21
A picture book to learn programming without any code is now on sale -

A picture book on how to learn programming, “Hello Ruby” has been published from Finland and is now popular all over the world. The Japanese version was published on May 19th by Shoei-Sha.

This picture book is designed for parents and children to become familiar with programming. A unique charac...

2016-06-16
Universal Earphone Translator to be available -

Waverly Labs, (main office in New York, USA) has begun to take pre-orders via Indiegogo cloud funding starting on May 25th for its innovative earphone dubbed the "Pilot", which picks-up a spoken language and automatically translates it and then whispers it into the other person’s ear.

You can se...

2016-06-14
Strategy for an independent publishers' survival -

The United States has slipped into a deep slump in the publishing industry as well as Japan. For example, regarding the largest book fair in the U.S, "Book Expo America”, it is said that a lot of major publishers have disappeared from the book fair. This makes us feel the influence of the declining ...

Over the past 11 years an impressive thirty million books were scanned by the digital generation giant companies’ advanced book search Google Books, this is a considerably large number of books, which almost rivals the 37 million books owned by the Library of Congress.

The Authors’ Guild and ...

2016-06-07
The future of e-books in the self-publishing market -

London Book Fair was held from April 12th to April 14th. The Japanese who participated there put together a paper regarding the impressions and outlook for the future.

According to the report, the field “Digital” and ” E-book” stand out the most in the book fair in spite of the exhibition relate...

2016-06-02
IDPF Announces Plan to Combine with W3C -

BookExpo America 2016, the largest publishing trade fair in North America took place at McCormick Place convention center from May 11th to May 13th, together with digital publishing convention IDPF DigiCon on May 10th and May 11th.

International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), developer of EPUB...

2016-05-31
Report on Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2016 -

Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the largest book fair specialized in children’s book was held in Bologna from April 4th to April 7th in 2016, and the report regarding it was released recently.

About 40,000 visitors came to this book fair and there were exhibitors from a total of 1,278 companies fr...

2016-05-27
Self-publishing becoming popular in UK. -

According to the online version of the publishing magazine in the UK “thebookseller.com”, sales of self-published eBooks accounted for 22% of the digital book market in the UK last year. This number was taken from the Nielsen BookInsights Conference on March 23rd.

The Chinese government ordered Apple Inc. to suspend their e-book selling operation and movie distribution operation in the Chinese market. The sales total of Apple’s smartphone “iPhone” taking a downward turn first, and a new worry has come about in Chinese market which supports Apple’s turnover.
...

2016-05-19
Hitler’s works “Mein Kampf” was republished in Germany -

Hitler’s works “Mein Kampf”, which had been banned from publication for a long time in Germany, was republished again. Hitler published “Mein Kampf” in 1925, and he had sold 12 millions copies until 1945.

After Hitler’s death, the copyright of his work was handed on to the Bavarian state governm...

2016-05-17
The Turin International Book Fair -

The 29th International Book Fair (“Salone Internazionale del Libro Torino”) will be held in Turin, Lingotto from May 12th to 16th 2016. The place of the fair is Lingotto, which used to be the automobile manufacturer Fiat’s Plant, which has its test course on the roof. It's a beautiful spiral ramp th...

2016-05-12
Romance Novels Written about Kagawa Prefecture in Japan, released in Bangkok -

This April, Bangkok has been holding the 44th National Book Fair, where a series of books have been written to attract more Thai tourists to visit Kagawa prefecture in Japan. Located in the south of Japan, Kagawa, the smallest prefecture, invited Thai author Ms. Sirikarn Suppalertporn, (She is famou...

Microsoft updated its iOS version of translation app “Microsoft Translation” to support offline translation. Before this update, in February 2016, Microsoft updated the Android version to support the same feature.

The competing app “Google Translate” is compatible with offline translation only o...

2016-05-05
2016 KLTCC with Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair -

The Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair will be held from April 29th to May 9th at the Malaysia Argo Exposition Park (MAEPS). Since 2013, there are over 2 million visitors and invites publishers to exhibit 800 booths from the Middle East and South East Asian countries.

The 2016 KLTCC (Internati...

2016-05-03
KADOKAWA invests in Yen Press, the leading translation publisher in the US -

The leading entertainment company in Japan, KADOKAWA took a big step in the publication of Japanese manga and light novels overseas.
KADOKAWA added the second leading company in the field of Japanese manga publications in the US, Yen Press as a member of their group.

Yen Press was established ...

2016-04-28
The 29th Bogota International Book Fair -

The 29th Bogota International Book Fair will be held from April 19th to May 2nd for 14 days at the Corferias Bogotá, Colombia. This Bogota International Book Fair is the most important book fair in South America, as it was named the Book Capital of the World in 2007, thus the city is recognized inte...

2016-04-27
“CRP”, the project selling photo books via Kindle -

A famous photographer in Japan, Mr. Arao Yokogi launched CROSSROAD PROJECT. The project that started in October 2015 aims for distributing photographer’s photo books all over the world by widely calling professional or amateur photographers and producing their digital photo books via Kindle, the Ama...

2016-04-24
TradeRights™ gets Three Key STM Partnerships -

TradeRights™ was developed by IPR License which is a British venture company founded in 2012. This is a B2B platform which is a fully transactional online rights solution to provide publishers the ability to negotiate internationally.
The founder Tom Chalmers developed this marketplace in partnersh...

2016-04-21
Skype’s evolving real-time translation -

Microsoft’s Skype launched a feature of real-time translation “Skype Translation” for those who use Windows on January 13, 2016. Anyone who uses Skype for Windows can use Skype Translator.

A skype user talks to the other skype user on video chat in his/her language, and then Skype Translator con...

2016-04-14
London Book Fair 2016 -

Now entering its 45th year, The London Book Fair is the global marketplace for rights negotiation, sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels. For 2016, it will return to Olympia, West London from April 12-14, as a fair that covers all aspects of the industry...

2016-04-12
Artificial Intelligence writing a short story -

It was found out that short stories written by Artificial Intelligence passed the first round for the literary prize “Hoshi-Shinichi Prize”. The news became an epoch-making occurrence where artificial intelligence extends into the “imaginary writing field” where it was thought that only humans could...

2016-04-12
Bologna Children’s Book Fair -

The World Largest Convention of Children’s Picture Books, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BCBF) will be held from the 4th of April to the 7th of April in Bologna, Italy. It started in 1964 and gathered over 1,200 ehibitors from 98 countries with over 25,000 attendants last year.

Xerox Corporation launches a surprisingly new service.
Xerox’s new service has a functionality that automatically translates a document as it is being copied.

According to the service introduction, PDF, Xerox® Easy Translator Service can produce draft machine translations instantly by utilizing ...

2016-03-31
The 17th Bahrain International Book Fair -

Bahrain International Book Fair features many cultural events and has gained a good reputation internationally throughout the past years in line with the atmosphere of openness and freedom established during His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa's prosperous era.

The Bahrain International Bo...

2016-03-29
Alexandrina International Book Fair -

Alexandrina International Book Fair will be held from March 21st to April 3rd 2016 at Bibliotheca Alexandrina, city of Alexandrina, Egypt. It is the 12th book fair since 2004, in cooperation with both the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Egyptian Publishers Association.

For intellectuals in the c...

2016-03-24
Making Use of Tablets to Develop Good Reading Habits -

In Bangladesh, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded children's READ program have started a reading education program using tablets in corporation with Beyond Access, which offers early-grade reading services to children and parents.

There are over 5,200 public li...

2016-03-22
Leipzig Book Fair 2016 -

The annual Leipzig Book Fair 2016 is going to be held during March 17th to March 20th at Leipziger Messe, Germany. Leipzig is a city famous for publishing and printing and it also has over 500 years history of trade fairs. Last year, 2263 publishers from over 40 countries were there to exhibit, whil...

2016-03-17
“Kakuyomu”, a novel posting site run by a publisher. -

On February 29, KADOKAWA DWANGO CORPORATION （KADOKAWA）and Hatena Co., Ltd launched “Kakuyomu”, a site for posting novels. There are already some similar novel posting sites in Japan, but the main feature of Kakuyomu is that a big publisher in Japan runs the site. KADOKAWA has developed not only publ...

A bookstore in Kyoto which opened in late November 2015 has attracted public attention. The bookstore’s name is Seikosha. It is a small bookstore whose floor space is less than 66 square meters. This bookstore doesn’t make agreements with publishing agencies, and stocks up on books from publication ...

2016-03-09
The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2016 -

The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2016 will be held in Dubai, UAE., where the most famous writers from all over the world will gather starting from the 1st of March for the following 12 days.

The Festival has continued to evolve since its inception in 2009 and it became established as ...

2016-03-07
Baltic Book Fair 2016 -

Baltic Book Fair 2016 will be held at the Riga International Exhibition Center in Latvia from February 26th to February 28th.With the aim of invigorating publishing activities in all three Baltic States, the first Baltic book fair was organized in 1995. In 1997, Riga Book Fair was established, and i...

2016-03-03
Publishers’ Bankruptcy Increasing in Japan -

The number of Japanese publishing companies going bankrupt have gradually increased over the past two years according to an announcement made on the 3rd of February by Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd.
38 publishing companies went bankrupt last year, which is the 4th smallest number seen during the 20 yea...

2016-03-01
“the revival” of out-of-print or out-of-stock books -

The declining rate of print press sales were at the highest figure seen in 2015, and the word “publishing nightmare” is now being used to describe this newfound reality.Each publisher is desperate to produce sellable books and content to defuse the situation. That is where the spotlight turns to the...

According to the “The Bookseller”, Google (California, USA) has now officially opened its first of a kind web browser based content that is only for the e-book shop “Editions at Play”. This store is being managed by Visual Edition (London, UK), and the books are not meant to be printed out, only rea...

A never-before-seen fairy tale written by Beatrix potter in 1914 was discovered.Potter is best known as the author of the "Tale of Peter Rabbit".Penguin Random House, one of the most famous publishers in the UK announced that they would publish the fairy tale next September.

The title of this nev...

2016-02-18
2016 Taipei International Book Exhibition -

The 2016 Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) will be held from February 16th (Tuesday) to the 21st (Monday) at the Taipei World Trade Center in Taiwan. General books, digital, animation/manga/light novel, literature and art will be in Hall 3 (23.450 square meters), while in Hall 1 (6,748 squ...

2016-02-16
Record largest attrition rate of print press sales in Japan -

On January 25, The Research Institute for Publications, which conducts survey research on the publishing business in Japan, announced estimated sales of paper based publication volume for Japan in 2015 was 1.522 trillion yen.The estimated turnover of print publications in Japan decreased compared to...

2016-02-11
Enhanced Features for “SmartMenu” Restaurant Menu Translation Service -

In the past few years, the numbers of tourists visiting Japan has increased. According to Japan Travelers Bureau Corporation, the numbers of visitors in 2016 is estimated to be 23.5 million people, which is a 19 percent increase compared to the previous year. This will be a record high. To support s...

2016-02-09
Invitation to The 47th Cairo International Book Fair -

The 47th Cairo International Book Fair is set to open from January 27th to February 10th at Cairo International Convention Center, Nasr City.The Cairo International Book Fair is the largest book fair in the Arab world, as well as the oldest. In addition, the number of visitors there was the second l...

2016-02-04
New wave of translation! The world’s first human powered translation application is here! -

In today’s world, economic activities have spread to global proportions; every corporate activity, product, and service requires translation into other languages. However, the accuracy of machine translation services like Google translate that people can easily use is still imperfect, because text i...

Silicon Valley- / Tokyo-based startup LogBar, has unveiled a new product called ‘iLi‘ at CES 2016 which was held in Las Vegas from the 6th to the 9th of January. It received the “Honoree” award, in the Wearable Device category.
The device can be worn around your neck, and has a built-in engine for...

2016-01-28
James Patterson Fund saves the independent book store -

Boxing Day of last year, December 26th, which falls on one of the biggest sales days of the year, saw flooding occur in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, of the United Kingdom. Sever damage was felt throughout the city, and a popular bookstore that had been around for over 30 years, “The Book Case“, wa...

Mr. Junichi Matsuda, a student of Tokyo University of the Arts, published a book about the universe and meteorites, “Cosmic planetary science known as meteorites” （Osaka Daigaku Shuppankai）.
It is surprising that an undergraduate student published a book, but more surprisingly, he is the former uni...

2016-01-21
Public Libraries Utilize e-Book System to Facilitate Access -

The American Library Association will be holding its Midwinter meeting this year in Boston starting from the 8th of January and going on until the 12th of January. Public libraries in the US have been licensed by major publishers for full catalogues of e-Books, which can be read by library patrons. ...

2016-01-19
A Happy New Year from Books and Rights Marketplace! -

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for your continuous interest and support to our business last year. Through our weekly press release, we wish to introduce more authors and their great books to our network of Japanese publishers.

There are only a few days left in 2015, and we would like to express our gratitude to all of our readers for your continued support and cooperation this year.

This site was created to bring good books from Japan and the world to our readers, along with delivering news to publishers and agents al...

2016-01-12
Paper Books in US Sales Growth, A key player is Picture coloring books! -

In October, a Pew Research Center study found that the number of Americans buying and using e-reading devices like Kindle decreased compared to last year. Even with the e-Books trend fading, we are seeing some evidence of paper book sales increasing in the US market.

Now is the season when the illumination of the street sparkles brighter and you see lovers walking hand in hand along the streets. Meanwhile, a fair where one can celebrate a Christmas full of hand-made crafts is taking place at Minami Aoyama, the forefront of trends seen in Japan.

At “Bible Hous...

2016-01-07
Wild Thing Christmas Tree made appearance in New York -

Original drawings of 1964 Caldecott medal winning picture book, "Where the Wild Things Are" and many other illustrations by Maurice Sendak appeared at the world’s largest auction company, the Sotheby’s New York Gallery, including a drawing of Wild Thing Moiche Christmas decoration by two little chil...

2016-01-04
A story about the revival of a small bookstore:"Jinbo-cho Nyankodo" -

Kanda Jinbo-cho, Tokyo, which is famous for the largest antiquarian bookstore area in the world. The recessionary wave seen through the publishing sector is flooding into this area where 200 bookstores are located.Even so, a small bookstore in this Kanda Jinbo-cho has become popular.Surprisingly, th...

2015-12-31
Exhibitor’s application open for TIFB, September 2016 -

Reed Exhibition Japan Co., an exhibition planning company based in Shinjuku Tokyo, opened up application for next years’ Tokyo International Book Fair (“TIBF”). The 23rd TIBF is at large changing its target to public readers and is expected to bring appeal to its potential unique selection of books....

2015-12-31
Launch sales of picture books in wholesale website ”SUPER DELIVERY”! Expectation of expanding to a new sales channel of publishers -

Kaisei-Sha and Holp Shuppan publishing, launched sales of their picture books for retail shops on “SUPER DELIVERY”, a wholesale website run by Raccoon Co., Ltd.
Until now, the publishing industry has published books via bookstores. But their sales have floundered year-by-year due to the publis...

2015-12-24
JMA aims to wipe out copyright thieves -

As for its first overseas ’ shop, Animate Co., the largest Japanese anime, comics and games good retailer is planned to open in Bangkok sometime around the end of this year to spring 2016. This September, there was an announcement that the company has established the Japan Manga Alliance (“JM...

NARITA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT CORPORATION（NAA）, which runs Narita International Airport in Japan, has put in place a megaphone-type translator to be used in Narita airport this December, which is the first ever to be implemented in the world.

Panasonic is in charge of developing this device, whose...

2015-12-18
A summary of the contents distribution service of overseas books by Flier Inc. in Japan. -

Flier Inc. [ATokyo, Japan] announced that they started offering a summary of a contents distribution service of overseas books on October 22nd, Japan time.

According to their press release, they have had several requests from their users about the distribution of summary contents of overseas book...

2015-12-18
Research on Digital Content Borrowing in the U.S. -

In the U.S. 82% of public libraries carry e-books and 95% in-school libraries, unlike Japanese libraries, which recently reported carrying as low as 1% according to the Japan Digital Library Service.

In the U.S. where there are plenty of e-books ready to be borrowed by library patrons, the Book I...

On November 20, YouTube under Alphabet Inc, the holding company of GOOGL.O, started to provide new tools for video creators that they can translate their movie titles or descriptive text into multiple languages. These new tools enable them to have the titles or explanatory texts displayed on YouTube...

2015-12-10
This year’s Nobel Prize winning Japanese translated book hard to obtain -

The winning novelist of the Nobel Prize in Literature this year was a lady from Belarus, Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich(67).

A publisher, GUNZOSHA Publishing Co., which specializes in Russian Literature (Yokohama prefecture, Japan), was the initial publisher of the Japanese translation of her ...

2015-12-04
Nielsen Books survey shows 50% of consumers would choose ebooks over printed books if the savings were $2-3 -

From the Frankfurt Book Fair 2015 Conference held last month, the US publishing industry quarterly magazine “Book Business” reports a summary of figures and facts which Nielsen Books shared at the seminar. According to a consumer survey, almost 50% of respondents said they’d choose ebooks over print...

NTT DOCOMO announced that they launched a free trial service of Tegaki Hon’yaku, a translation service that allows any Google Play userTM to communicate by using either character handwriting or illustration as of September 9, 2015.

Tegaki Hon’yaku can convert handwriting that is in English, Frenc...

2015-11-27
The new Arabian Translation Award announced at the Sharjah International Book Fair -

The 34th Sharjah International Book Fair started on Nov. 4 in Emirate of Sharjah, which is one of the states of the United Arab Emirates. This year, the purpose is to discuss business with Arab publishers, thus 200 international delegates were flown in. Attended by 1,547 publishers from 69 countries...

2015-11-26
Big-name YouTube stars expands into the publishing business -

Publishing industry officials who try to stir up new sales seem to dedicate their resources to YouTube stars, who have unparalleled influence on social media.

The No. 1 YouTube star on the Forbes’s list of “highest-paid YouTube stars” is PewDiePie in Sweden. Surprisingly, his annual income reach...

2015-11-20
Translated books seeing a world wide boom in 2015 -

Translation of Marie Kondo’s book, “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” which was originally written in Japanese, has truly became a global phenomenon this year, being sold in 25 countries world wide, it is the #1 best seller in the New York Times. In fact, there is another Japanese originated tr...

2015-11-17
The 34th Istanbul Book Fair takes place -

The 34th Istanbul International Book Fair is being held from November 7th to November 15th at the TÜYAP Fair and Convention Center, in the west of Istanbul.

According to the press release by TÜYAP Fairs, the organizer of Istanbul International Book Fair, this year’s theme for the Istanbul Book Fa...

2015-11-12
Solid sales growth of Japanese Manga in North America -

ICv2, the company reporting the latest information about pop culture business industry in the USA, reported that the amount of Manga sales has increased solidly.

On October 8th, ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp presented the ICv2 White Paper at New York Comic Con 2015. When he talked about the latest trend...

2015-11-12
A quarter of the total Japanese population has read an eBook in the past year -

Rakuten Research, the largest Japanese marketing research company in the Internet industry has randomly selected 1,000 men and women aged 20 to 69 from a pool of 2.3 million registered subjects, in order to complete a survey conducted earlier this month.The result has been released on October 21, 20...

2015-11-05
E-book sales weakening in the US -

E-book sales are shrinking in the US. according to the Association of American Publishers, the revenue of e-books trade declined by 10.3% compared to the same period in 2014. AAP tracks sales data from more than 1200 participating publishers.

The majority of e-books year-over-year decline has co...

2015-11-03
J.K.Rowling released enhanced editions of all seven books of her Harry Potter series on iBooks for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch -

Pottermore.com, the e-book publisher of J.K.Rowling, announced that Enhanced Edition of all seven books in her Harry Potter series are now released exclusively on the iBooks StoreSM, the official application of Apple ® on October 8th, local time.

Until now, the e-book edition of the Harry Potter ...

2015-10-29
More than 300 municipalities without a bookstore, now a bookstore needs uniqueness -

According to a study done by the Japan Book Publishing Association, there are 332 municipalities in Japan where there is not even a single bookstore in the area. It means that one in 5 municipalities is a “no-bookstore” municipality.

Rural areas in Japan especially contain more “no-bookstore” mun...

2015-10-27
Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's largest trade fair for books take place -

67th Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's largest trade fair for books will take place from October 14th to 18th this year. For the course of five days, more than 7100 exhibitors from over 100 countries, and more than 270,000 visitors will participate. The Frankfurt Book Fair is the largest fair in term...

2015-10-22
Amazon offers its Prime Members The Washington Post for free -

Amazon.com has announced that it is offering free Washington Post subscriptions for six months to members of Amazon Prime, which is a paid membership service whose benefits include FREE Two-Day Shipping, and unlimited streaming of TV shows. After the six-month free period expires, it turns into a pe...

2015-10-22
New York Comic Con -

This year marks the 10th anniversary for New York Comic Con, which takes place at Jacob Javits Convention Center in NYC from Oct. 8th to the 11th.

Comic Con is a convention for pop-culture, including comics, movies, SF, and animation. It is similar to "Comic Market" in Japan, which is a Doujinshi...

4 magazine publishers organized a Fashion-themed Hackathon Event called "The Fashion Hack Tokyo", which took place on August 29th and August 30th, aiming to create new ways of enjoying magazines.

Hackathon is an event where people work together and develop a software or a service within a certai...

2015-10-06
Increase in foreign students staying in Japan for jobs -

There is a growing trend of foreign students who stay in Japan to work after finishing their undergraduate, or master degrees. According to the study by the Ministry of Justice, for those foreign students with a student visa applying for a change of status of residency, the number of permits given t...

2015-09-29
20 years of Amazon.com -

This year marks its 20th year since Amazon.com opened its virtual doors to its online bookstore in 1995.
According to Publishers Weekly, Amazon’s annual sales is now very close to hit $ 100 billion, but the first year, Amazon posted annual revenue of $510000. It grew rapidly, and by 1999 annual sa...

2015-09-29
Joint Venture by Major Japanese publishers, trying to publicize Manga and Anime abroad -

As the popularity of Japanese Anime and Manga is growing, 4 major Japanese publishers and Animate, a company selling anime-related products, have gathered to establish a joint venture. It aims to publicize Japanese manga and anime abroad, and also promote measures against piracies.

The new joint...

2015-09-22
Manila International Book Fair -

The 36th annual Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) will be held from September 16th to 20th at SMX Convention Center. The MIBF is the biggest book event in the Philippines. It’s aim is to get people to read more. Visitors are able to purchase a variety of books from bestseller novels to academics...

2015-09-17
Lawson and MUJI expand book sales -

It is said that the environment surrounding bookstores in towns has been severe due to the recession in the publishing business. However, some retailers that are not specialized in selling books have announced to expand their book sales.

Lawson, one of the big convenience store chains in Japan, a...

2015-09-15
US publisher asking for donations to promote Barefoot Gen among US schools -

Barefoot Gen is a comic book about a boy who lived through an atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima, and survived through the chaos after World War 2. It started as a popular comic series in a weekly comic magazine in 1973 and had become a best seller. Now this comic has been translated into more than ...

2015-09-11
Amazon changed the way they pay to self-publishing authors -

In the US, Amazon.com has become a platform for Self-publishing authors to release their works. Starting this July, Amazon changed its way to pay royalties to those self-publishing authors, and it has become a hot topic whether it is good or bad for the authors.

Amazon started to pay some authors...

2015-09-09
Increasing popularity of reading on smartphone -

E-books have become widely used around the world. In the beginning, it was expected that the E-book reader is the main device to read e-books with, but it seems that it is moving in the direction differs from expectations.

US newspaper Wall Street Journal reports about how people read e-books on ...

2015-09-04
22th Beijing International Book Fair -

The 22th Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF) will be held from August 26th to 31th in Beijing, China.

BIBF is now the second biggest publishing event in the world, following Frankfurt International Book Fair according to BIBF's website. 90% of Chinese publishers participate as well as other m...

2015-09-04
Microsoft released translator app -

As many companies enter into the competitive translation application market, there is another company that just released one recently. It is Microsoft. It has published a new app called “Microsoft Translator”. It is available for smartphone and tablet, as well as smart watch such as Apple Watch.

Japanese Manga has been increasing its popularity outside of Japan. Many events focusing on Manga take place all over the world. In order to accelerate the development of overseas Manga markets, one of the Japanese publishers, Kodansha, is expanding digital manga distribution business outside of Jap...

2015-08-26
“Sleep in bookstore”, new hostel is scheduled to open in Tokyo -

Reading before bedtime is most likely a habit of many people. The perfect accommodation is slated to open for those folks. A new hostel with the concept of "bookstore you can sleep in “called "BOOK AND BED TOKYO" is scheduled to open at the end of September. It is located a one minute walk from the ...

2015-08-23
Rakuten starts Print-On-Demand Service -

Print-On-Demand (POD) service allows service providers to print and bind books starting from one copy as needed by utilizing a digital printer. Since there is no need to have inventory due to the nature of POD, they can reduce cost and labor of managing inventory. It seems that POD service is gradua...

In Japan, the number of foreign tourists are expected to surge for the Tokyo Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games, which will take place in 2020. To deal with this matter, more attention is paid on the development of machine translation systems.

NTT Docomo has just announced they have develope...

2015-08-14
Growing popularity of Self-publishing Machine -

Espresso Book Machine is a book-producing machine, developed by the US Company called On Demand Books. The machine can print and bind a book within 10 minutes, starting from only one copy. It was installed at one of Sanseido bookstores in Japan 5 years ago. However, the kind of books that the machin...

2015-08-11
Consumers move away from print publishing -

The revenue from digital publishing, which include e-books, e-magazines and e-newspapers will grow from 41 billion US dollars in 2015 to 74 billion in 2019, according to a forecast by Ovum, a research company in England. People are changing their reading habits and that is the reason behind this tre...

2015-08-08
What books sold well in the first half of 2015 in the US? -

In the first half year of 2015, biography/autobiography/memoir and house & home/gardening are the 2 best-selling categories in the US. In the house & home category, unit sales went up by 36% compared to the same period last year. The biggest contributor was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidy Up by Mari...

2015-08-05
A new style of bookstore -

In recent years, it has been said that the environment surrounding bookstores has been severe due to declining book sales. However, according to Sankei Shimbun, a new style of bookstore, where they provide a comfortable environment for customers to choose books, not just selling books, is gaining po...

2015-08-02
Popularity of Book Club -

It has been said people’s reading time has been decreasing in recent years and the waning interest in books is becoming a serious issue. Contrary to what people believe about the interest in books, lately "Book Clubs" are getting more popular in Japan. Book Club is the gathering of book lovers, dis...

2015-07-28
World largest publishers ranking in 2015 -

Publishers Weekly and Livre Hebdo have released annual global ranking for publishers.
Pearson maintained its top position as the world’s biggest publisher. However, the emergence of Chinese publishers and M&A have affected this year's top ranking.

Two Chinese publishers made th...

2015-07-27
Hong Kong Book Fair -

The 26th HKTDC Hong Kong Book Fair will be held from July 15-21 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). This year, more than 580 exhibitors from over 30 countries and regions are set to take part. This Book Fair started as just another place to sell books, but it has beco...

2015-07-22
Japanese ebook market, up 35% in 2014 -

According to Impress Research, the Japanese ebook market continues to grow. Impress Research has recently compiled a study regarding the Japanese ebook market. The study was done by analyzing surveys given to ebook professionals such as telecom carriers, publishers and ebook users.

More and more foreign tourists are expected to visit Japan for the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020. In order to accommodate these increasing visitors, many companies are accelerating their efforts to research and develop automatic translation systems.

Panasonic and JTB are partnering ...

2015-07-15
Demand for Translation jobs increase in the US -

In the US where many immigrants reside, there are many people who speak more than 2 languages, not only English. It is not too rare to meet people who speak 3 or 4 languages. The demand for translators and interpreters is expected to increase in the future.

According to CareerBu...

2015-07-09
Novel sharing website with translation feature -

An original fiction sharing website is an online service that allows users to post fictions they write and read fictions posted by other users. Several best-selling fictions came out from these services. One of the new services called Taskey is getting popular because of its unique feature....

2015-07-08
The 22nd Tokyo International Bookfair -

The 22nd annual Tokyo International Bookfair will be held at Tokyo Big Sight from July 1st to 4th. 420 exhibitors from more than 20 countries will participate and over 70000 people are expected to visit.

During TIBF, plenty of symposiums and seminars for publishing professiona...

2015-07-03
Books translated from German are getting popular in Taiwan -

It has been said that there is so much interest in foreign cultures and literatures in Taiwan, because of its small land size. In most countries, books written by native authors in their own language have better sales compared to those translated from foreign languages. But in Taiwan, it se...

2015-07-01
Research shows lending ebooks at public libraries would harm the book business -

According to the business magazine of the book industry called Bookseller, recent research has concluded lending ebooks at public libraries would not result in purchasing ebooks.

The study was commissioned by the Publishers Association and the Society of Chief Librarians and too...

2015-06-26
Amazon Japan, started to offer Book Buyback service -

The Internet retailor, Amazon.com has been impacting the publishing industry. Its Japanese subsidiary, Amazon Japan has started a new service called "Amazon Book Buy Back service". Users can apply for the service online and products will be picked up from their home. The service is expected...

2015-06-23
What concerns does the publishing industry have with regard to digital strategies? -

The environment surrounding the publishing industry has been changing rapidly because of the digital evolution. With the emergence of ebooks, the way people enjoy and purchase books is shifting from paper to digital. The publishing industry needs to change itself in order to correspond to t...

2015-06-20
Amazon launched Kindle for Kids Bundle -

Amazon.com has launched a package of Kindle products targeting families with young children called "Kindle for Kids Bundle". Amazon's aim is to introduce the product at the end of the school year when parents want their kids to continue reading during the summer.
This new package ...

2015-06-17
Adult coloring book craze in Europe and the U.S. -

There is a surge in the popularity for coloring books targeting adults in Europe and the U.S. By engaging in coloring, people can expect therapeutic effects that lead to stress relief.
Johanna Basford, an illustrator from Scotland, triggered the boom with her book “Secret Garden”. I...

2015-06-12
The world capital of bookstores -

The publishing industry is having a tough time these days due to internet retailers with which people can easily buy books, and also the existence of ebooks. Of course, the same thing applies to bookstores. In Japan, it has been said that the number of bookstores has decreased over the last ...

Microsoft Corp's Internet phone service, Skype has launched voice interpreter features called “Skype Translator”. Skype Translator is a feature that can translate languages almost in real time and output in sound. Just like talking through a simultaneous interpreter, people can have conver...

2015-06-05
Future of the Chinese ebook market -

After a decade of high growth, the Chinese economy seems to be slowing down. Well, how about the ebook market? Publishing Perspectives, the news site targeting the publishing industry, ran an interview with the Chairman of ChineseAll, a digital contents technology company in China.
In...

2015-06-03
Bookexpo America 2015 -

The largest book trade show in North America, Book Expo America will be held at Javits Center in New York City from May 27th to 29th.
BEA is a place for book rights negotiation, but its main focus is on the side of regular readers, where authors can interact with their fans and showcase their...

2015-06-03
Amazon launched Kindle for Kids Bundle -

Amazon.com has launched a package of Kindle products targeting families with young children called "Kindle for Kids Bundle". Amazons aim is to introduce the product at the end of the school year when parents want their kids to continue reading during the summer.
This new package...

2015-05-28
European Ebooks Market, a step forward to be unified -

The European Union is the world’s largest economic entity where 28 countries participate. It is unified single market where workers, products, and capital can move freely within the territory and a common currency was introduced. However, when it comes to e-books market, the EU is far from unifie...

2015-05-28
Amazon Japan Launches new service for publishing short stories -

Some of the advantages of ebooks include the convenience of taking care of them, there is no need to worry about running out of stock, or not having enough space to keep them. A new service which utilizes these advantages of ebooks has just been launched.
Amazon Japan has started new service ...

2015-05-21
International Book fairs held in May -

In May, there will be an array of book fairs organized all over the world.
The 25th Abu Dhabi International Book Fair will be held from May 7 to May 13. It is focusing on the professional and commercial development of the regional publishing industry, and becoming the hub for Arab bookse...

2015-05-19
Use of ebook increases for both free and paid contents -

Ebooks are now widely used. Many companies provide various ebooks and ebook-related services which are getting more and more recognition.
According to ITMedia, a research conducted by MD Institute,“Survey on e-books and paper books – March 2015" revealed that 42.8% of respondents said that they ...

2015-05-16
Use of translation jobs through crowdsourcing services expands -

In the translation industry, use of crowdsourcing, which is outsourcing jobs to the general public via the Internet, is growing. People who accept jobs can work anytime anywhere, and people who place an order can curb costs. These are the reasons for its popularity.
In response to...

2015-05-12
The first bookstore for self-published authors opened in the US -

More people are engaged in self-publishing these days in the US, but a lack of presenting their works to the public is one of the universal problems for indie authors. A new bookstore that mainly sells books by indie authors has just opened in Florida.
The new store Gulf Coast Bookstore, whi...

2015-05-08
The First Best Translation Award announcing tis winners -

Let's cast spotlights on the works of translators!
"The Best Translation Award" is newly created "award for translators by translators", which was founded by one of the Japanese translators, Mr Ken Nishizaki. This closely watched Award, partially because it has launched its fundraising camp...

2015-05-05
HarperCollins enters Japanese market -

HarperCollins Publishers announced the formation of HarperCollins Japan as well as several subsidiaries in Europe, expanding foreign language publication programs in those markets. Each market will publish a list of 30 to 50 HarperCollins books starting in Fall 2015. It is the first time for Harper...

2015-05-01
Founding Japan Audiobook Association -

16 companies including Shogakukan, Kodansha, Shinchosha and KADOKAWA have announced the recent establishment of the Japan Audiobook Association which aims to promote audio books in Japan. The collective goal of the participating companies is to work together in order to develop a successful market...

2015-04-29
Bankruptcies of publishers rose by 50% in 2014 -

Bankruptcies of publishing companies have increased in Japan. The business environment surrounding the publishing industry is growing in severity because of various changes such as the change of composition of book purchasers due to the aging population, combined with a small child population, and t...

2015-04-28
New ebook services to fill spare your spare time -

An increasing number of ebook services are starting to target "sukima jikan ( spare time)", meaning a very short amount of time in your schedule for example when you are traveling to a next meeting, or the time in between your appointments.
Nikkei BP has just issued a new lebook series calle...

2015-04-24
London Book Fair -

The 44th annual London Book Fair will be held from April 14th to 16th. It is one of the biggest book fairs in the world, along with Frankfurt held in October. Over 25,000 professionals in publishing industry from more than 60 countries are expected to participate.This year, the venue has moved to Ol...

Dai Nippon Printing and a Japanese mega-bookstore Kinokuniya announced that they would establish a joint venture. Dai Nippon Printing operates bookstore chains such as Maruzen and Junkudo. As overseas e-commerce operators such as Amazon.com has increased its presence in Japan, those two companies,...

There was news recently that Rakuten was buying a U.S. company which provides ebook rental services to libraries, but there has also been another development the same field.
A joint venture company, called "Japan digital library service (abbreviation: JDSL)”, which was established by KADOKAWA, Koda...

2015-04-24
Rakuten buys eBook Rental firm OverDrive -

Rakuten has announced that has acquired OverDrive Holdings, one of the largest ebook rental service providers to libraries. The price tag for the deal is estimated at US $410 million. OverDrive, who already has partnerships with publishers, provides ebooks for rental to libraries. OverDrive and Raku...

2015-04-08
US publishers show solid sales in 2014 -

In the US, sales of books including e-books keep growing. Net sales across U.S. publishers were $ 15.7 billion in 2014, up 4.9 percent compared to 2013, according to the Association of American Publishers. Much of last year’s sales growth contributed to gains in Children & Young Adult and PreK-12 ed...

2015-04-08
The Bologna Children’s Book Fair -

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair will take place in the northern Italian city of Bologna. This year, the book fair will be held from March 30 to April 2.

This annual book fair is the most important international event targeting professionals in the children's publishing industry. Authors, illust...

2015-04-08
The biggest French book fair, “Salon du livre du Paris” -

The biggest book fair in France, “Salon du livre du Paris”, will be held from March 20st to the 23th at Porte de Versailles, which is located in the south of Paris. Not only professionals from publishing industry but also general book lovers gather here. This is one of the many leading annual intern...

2015-04-03
A French manufacturer will develop solar powered e-readers -

Unlike smart phones and tablets, where the competition is fierce, the pace of developing new technology for e-readers is comparatively slow. However, French e-reader manufacturer, Bookeen has just announced to develop a new solar powering e-readers.
The new e-reader will use unique technology so th...

2015-04-03
Barnes & Noble Spins Off Its College Books Unit -

Barnes & Noble Inc, the bookstore chain struggling with sales, announced that it would spin off its education unit which comprises of a college bookstore business, and make it an independent company. The business currently operates 714 stores on college campuses in 42 states in the U.S., and also s...

2015-03-19
Leipzig Book Fair -

An annual book fair 'Leipzig buchmesse" will take place from Mar. 12 to 15 in Leipzig, Germany, which is known to be a city with the long history of publishing The fair is known as a place where authors, publishers and general readers get together and interact. In 2014, more than 23, 0000 people vi...

2015-03-18
Revival of Complete Works -

Complete works now being recognized once again in the Japanese publishing industry. Complete works used to be stars in the publishing business, but publications of complete works have decreased more and more since the 1990s. As the publishing business was hard hit by the depression, it has become ve...

As paper publishing continues to shrink in Japan, a new service from Tsutaya, a nationwide chain of video rental shops and bookstores, is getting attention. The new service means that a free electronic version is also offered when you purchase elected magazines. The service was started in December 2...

Unlimited eBook subscription services are becoming more popular, especially in the categories of manga and magazines. Similar services targeting children are also gaining traction.
I-Freek Mobile, a company that provides an app which gives an unlimited access to 340 picture eBooks for a flat-fe...

2015-03-13
The latest on Japanese publishing market―― Paperbacks continue to shrink -

According to a survey targeting both male and female in the 20 – 40 age range, conducted by Hybrid bookshop ‘Honto’, about half of men and women answered that they read more than one book a month, meaning, the remaining half do not read at all. If that is the case, how does Japan’s domestic publicat...

Award ceremony for the annual manga translation contest ‘Manga Translation Battle vol.3’ and the symposium and will take place at Roppongi Hills Mori Tower Academy hills on Feb. 24. This year marks the third year that the contest aims to foster excellent Japanese-English translators, who are essenti...

2015-02-28
E-book lending at Library--Trend outside of Japan -

There are increasing number of Japanese public libraries that started to lend e-books. What is the situation outside of Japan?
According to Good e-Reader Blog, 95% of all US libraries have an e-book collection in 2014. That’s up from 89% in both 2013 and 2012, when it seemed that adoption had pla...

2015-02-28
Facebook CEO launches Book Club -

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg started a Book Club at the beginning of this year which has been attracting attention. Every year Mr. Zuckerberg sets himself a challenge to broaden his perspective. He asked his Facebook followers for suggestions as to what would be a good challenge for 2015, and recei...

2015-02-28
Art Gallery Opens At Babel’s Tokyo Office -

An art gallery has opened on the corner of Babel Tokyo office! It aims to increase opportunities for people to come in contact with arts and designs from all over the world. For the first exhibition, the art works of a Japanese-style painter, Ms. Masae Ota, are displayed. Ms. Ota’s works are wonderf...

2015-02-28
New Delhi World Book Fair -

New Delhi World Book Fair (NDWBF) will be held from Saturday, Feb. 14 through Sunday, Feb. 22 at Pragati Meidan in the Indian capital, New Delhi. This year marks its 23rd and the oldest book fair in India. In 2014, it has attracted more than 1200 exhibitors from India and all over the world on 34000...

2015-02-17
Taipei International Book Exhibition -

TIBE--Taipei International Book Exhibition--will take place for 6 days starting Feb. 11 at Taipei World Trade Center. This annual international book fair is one of the biggest in Asia, attracting publishers, editors, distributors from over 60 countries.

TIBE has announced that it will admit visit...

2015-02-12
Apple close to catching up with Amazon -

Amazon.com seemed to have secured the leading position among e-book platforms with its e-book reading device “Kindle,” but Apple, despite of its late entry into the market, is catching up. Apple adds one million new customers every week to iBooks, its e-book business, says iBooks director Keith Moer...

2015-02-05
Latest on machine translation -

Google has just released two new features for its mobile app "Google Translate". First is instant translation of foreign words found in images taken by cameras. The way it works is simple. Open the app on your device, tap the camera icon and capture any image that contain foreign words, such as men...

2015-02-04
Publishing Through Crowdfunding, a Growing Trend -

Crowdfunding seems to have become an established method of financing just about anything these days, and the use for book-publishing is no exception. Crowdfunding works as follows: an individual or a small business owner with ideas for a product or service makes a presentation, then the general publ...

2015-01-30
Young Adult fiction Novels proven to be popular as ever -

In US, the sale of Young Adult (YA) fiction novels continues strong. YA is the genre that targets teenagers through early twenties. Research firm Nielsen has released its annual top-selling book list for 2014 in US; 8 out of top 10 were YA fictions. Many of the books in the ranking were made into mo...

2015-01-30
New Year's Greetings from BRM -

A Happy New Year!
We hope you are ringing in the new year with happiness and joy.

Thank you for your interest in our weekly press release last year. We will continue to discover and introduce more authors and their great books to our network of Japanese publishers.

Independent authors, we...

2015-01-30
Best wishes for 2015 -

Thank you so much for your interest in the Books & Rights Marketplace, as always.
There are only a few days left in 2014, and we would like to express our gratitude to all of our readers for your continued support and cooperation this year.
We intended to run this site for our readers who are wo...

2015-01-30
No more troubles for Christmas gifts -

The Republic of Iceland, which is a small island country in Northern Europe, consists of land the same size as Hokkaido and Shikoku in Japan, and its population is around 320,000. It is said that Iceland produces the most books per capita in the world. The average print run is 2,000 copies for a com...

2015-01-16
A translation award established by translators -

It is because of translators’ hard work that people can enjoy foreign language books in Japanese, and it also spreads the recognition of Japanese authors overseas. Unfortunately, however, translators do not receive enough credit for their contributions. One translator wanted to change this, and he t...

2015-01-16
Children can read overseas picture books every month -

The Japanese publishing market is getting smaller, but the market of children’s books, which has a good effect on children’s education, has been stable. The market for children’s education and related services have continued growing. Children also have had a better chance to learn foreign languages ...

2015-01-01
More people can enjoy reading with large print books -

Large print books, in which the words are 2-3 times bigger than in standard books, are coming into the spotlight. They were originally sold for people with weak eyesight since around 1980, but recently, senior bookworms who are having trouble reading have become more and more interested in these lar...

2014-12-30
The Bible card games attract young people -

A new religion-based card game depicting Christ, his disciples, and famed episodes from the Bible in anime style was released in March of this year, and it has become popular among young non-Christians. The sale of 1000 copies of a Christian-themed book is considered a great success in Japan, and th...

2014-12-24
What attracted Japanese to “Frozen”? -

Mainichi Simbun and Japan School Library Association have organized a reading survey for school children The result was just announced. The most popular books for 4th to 6th grade girls (10 years old to 12 years old) were “Frozen” which has gained overwhelming popularity for both film and music, and...

2014-12-24
JEPA Digital Publication Award -

The Japan Electronic Publishing Association announced the grand prize of the 8th JEPA Digital Publication Award, and the awarding ceremony was recently held. This award began in 2007 in order to promote digital publication in Japan, and to improve technology. This award has been announced at the end...

2014-12-20
Translate and deliver your books to readers all over the world -

The number of authors who publish only digital books has sharply increased on a global basis. In order to expand sales, many of them hope to translate their works into other languages. A new site, which arranges “meetings” for authors and translators, was officially launched this summer.

The si...

2014-12-20
Japanese artist's life becomes an animated film -

A long animated drama film titled TATSUMI was recently released in Japan. The film follows the career of Japanese manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi who invented "gekiga". The film is directed by Eric Khoo, a leading filmmaker in Singapore. In 2011, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was...

2014-12-12
New services by libraries and universities face the Act on the Elimination of Disability Discrimination -

The Act on the Elimination of Disability Discrimination was passed by the Japanese Diet in June 2013, and will be executed from April 2016. The Act aims for a society in which all Japanese respect each other’s human rights and individuality regardless of disability, and aims to promote elimination o...

2014-12-04
International Manga Festival 2014 -

The International Manga Festival 2014, which introduces manga culture around the world, will be held on November 23rd at Tokyo Big Sight. The event started in 2012 with a strong support from 7 countries’ embassies and culture centers, including the United States, France, and Italy. It is also gainin...

2014-12-04
A picture book for adults on the subject of raising children is popular -

An English-language poem titled “Today” that was written from a mother’s point of view has received empathy from Japanese mothers. The picture book was published last year, and 15,000 copies have been sold so far. This picture book for adults has been selling briskly.

According to an article i...

2014-12-04
International Book Fair for High-Quality Fiction and Non-Fiction 2014 -

The 16th International Book Fair for High-Quality Fiction and Non-Fiction will be held from November 26th to the 30that Central House of Artists in Moscow, the capital city of the Russian Federation.
When the fair was held for the first time, it was a very small event in which only 40 publishers...

2014-11-28
Goal for 2020 – Offer translation services -

Since Tokyo was chosen to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, the Japanese government has set a target number for international tourists, 20 million by 2020, and has taken various policies to attract them. The number of companies that offer translation services have been increased by using the magic...

2014-11-28
The BBC’s new challenge -

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a public broadcasting station in the UK, is enhancing its movement into Asian countries. Broadcasting styles have changed with the times. What is the BBC going to start now?
According to an article in NIKKEI, Jim Egan, the CEO of BBC Global news, which ...

2014-11-20
A new online publication by athletes just launched -

Derek Jeter, who played for the New York Yankees and retired at the end of this season, started a new business operating a website called The Players’ Tribune. The website offers athletes a place to tell their own stories from their own perspectives without being filtered by reporters.
Accordin...

The Man Booker Prize, which is one of the most prestigious literature prizes in the world, is given to the best novel of the year. This year’s winner is an Irish citizen of the United Kingdom, Richard Flanagan, who was born in Tasmania, Australia, for his latest novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep No...

2014-11-18
November Book Fairs -

The world's biggest book fair held in Frankfurt, Germany has recently ended, but the best season for reading still continues. We showed you a fair in Indonesia the other day, and now we would like to introduce two book fairs in Europe and America held in November.

The first one is the Dublin Bo...

2014-11-18
Indonesia Book Fair -

The 34th annual Indonesia Book Fair will be held at Store Senayan, an indoor sporting arena located in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. There will be an air of excitement during the fair, which will be held from November 1st to the 9th.
Indonesia is a multiethnic country composed of a...

2014-11-05
Will the Japanese publishing industry connect to India? -

Publishing Next 2014, an annual conference for people who work in the Indian publishing industry that is held in Goa, located in the west coast of India. The conference is organized by a publisher that provides self-publishing services in India, and it has been held every September since 2011. The m...

2014-11-05
Preparations and Measures for Revised Copyright Act -

Publication rights, which are intended for paper books, will be expanded to digital books. The Revised Copyright Act will be executed from January 1, 2015, and related organizations are under pursuit for the preparations and measures with just two months left.
According to an article in the Shin...

2014-10-30
Advanced picture books -

The more digital books become popular, the more choices readers have. Several more convenient functions have been developed for digital books. This also affects children’s picture books, and many different services have developed creative ideas.

Librodart (Meguro, Tokyo), which provides an Engli...

2014-10-30
October Book Fairs -

In Japan, there is an expression called “autumn for reading”, which means that autumn is the best season for reading. Japan may be the only country to use that expression, but book fairs in European countries are held in October, in the middle of autumn. We introduced the Frankfurt (Germany) Book fa...

2014-10-22
Will a Japanese modern author become one of the great authors in the world literature? -

Haruki Murakami and Keigo Higashino will be placed at the top of the list of Japanese contemporary authors who are popular in foreign countries. However, there is a Japanese modern literature author who has obtained new readers in the 21st century. The author, who has about 60 works that have been t...

Cafes where you can enjoy coffee and lunch while you read e-books have been expanding around Tokyo. The e-book market has increased, but research results show that the comic genre occupies 80% of the sales, and there are very few people who read e-book novels and literature works. In order to promot...

2014-10-17
Frankfurt Book Fair 2014 -

The world biggest book fair, which is held every mid-October at Frankfurt am Main (called Frankfurt), the fifth largest city in Germany, will be held from the 8th to the 12th this year at Messe Frankfurt. Frankfurt is one of the international financial centers, and is the hub of industries and trade...

The most popular news topics in the publishing world at the moment are about e-books, but actual usage of digital media in Japan has been assessed as “developing”. Also, research results show that the size of the domestic e-book market has been increasing every year.
According to articles in the...

Digital books have become widespread, and all genres of books, including novels, magazines, comics and academic books are available nowadays. This trend has also reached to children’s picture books.
According to an article in the IT Media, Dai Nippon Printing (Head Office: Shinjuku, Tokyo) and on...

2014-10-10
Japanese self-help books are becoming popular overseas -

A Tokyo-based publisher, Sunmark Publishing, has racked up sales of over 1.5 million copies of a self-help book called “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying” by Marie Kondo. The book is popular overseas, and has been translated into English, Chinese, German and Korean so far. Additionally, the rights ...

2014-10-04
Amazon conflicts against publishers around the world -

Amazon is a world-famous online shopping site, operating in 12 countries around the world including USA, Japan, France, Germany, China and India. It is significantly popular for its wide selection and convenience. However, the company has recently conflicted with publishers around the world due to b...

2014-10-04
Do you prefer paper or digital? - Big gaps for fixity and solidity of stories -

New research has found that readers using a Kindle were worse at recalling the plot in a story than paperback readers. It is an interesting result in the era of rapid-fire digitization for the reading activity.
According to an article in the Guardian, the research was presented at a conference i...

2014-10-04
Goteborg Book Fair -

The biggest book fair of the Nordic countries will be held in Goteborg, the second largest city in Sweden, from September 25th to the 28th. The first fair was held in 1985 and had 5,000 visitors. Since then, it has gained recognition and popularity, and has grown year after year. Over 96,000 visitor...

2014-09-24
Japanese “Light Novels” re-landing in the United States -

Yen Press, whose head office is in New York, specializes in translated manga. Along with American giant publisher Hachette, they have launched sales of translated Japanese “light novels”. In the United States publishing world, comics are comics, and novels are novels. Those two genres have clearly ...

“Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen)” is a semi-autobiographical manga by Keiji Nakazawa, who experienced the World War II bombing. The manga describes people and their lives during the turbulent times around World War II through the main character, Gen Nakaoka. Some local communities have recently tried ...

2014-09-24
Haruki Murakami’s newly translated novel and the views of his fans and translator -

World-renowned Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s full-length novel “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage” has been translated into English and recently released. The original work was released last year, and it became a bestseller that sold over a million copies in Japan. It was said...

2014-09-14
The Manila International Book Fair -

The 35th annual Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) will be held from September 17th to the 21st at SMX Convention Center. The venue is located in the bayside area, which has undergone large-scale development, and it is close to Mall of Asia, the biggest shopping mall in Asia.

The MIBF is the ...

2014-09-10
The Revised Copyright Act and countermeasures by the publishing world -

A proposed amendment to the Copyright Act, which expands publishing rights so that a publisher can exclusively issue the work to digital books, was approved, and went into force at the Upper House plenary session in April. Publishers and related organizations have scrambled for reviews and renewals ...

2014-09-05
Delete pirates — MAG Project is now launched -

The MAG (Manga-Anime Guardians) Project, an intensive project focused on deleting illegal copies of Japanese manga and anime, has just been launched. “Piracy isn’t cultivating new talent” – Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and “Manga-Anime Anti-Piracy Committee” which has organized by ...

2014-09-05
Book Fairs held in August -

Two international book fairs will be held in late August.
The first event, the San Paulo International Book Biennial, will be held in San Paulo, which is the biggest city in South America, and also the economic and cultural center of Brazil. The venue will be the Anhembi Convention Center, whic...

2014-08-28
JPO and NICT collaborate to improve the accuracy of automated translation -

The Japan Patent Office (JPO) and National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) announced that they have agreed to collaborate to improve the accuracy of automated translation systems in response to an increased need for automated translation of foreign patent documents. JPO...

2014-08-28
Translated books at government expense spread Japanese charm to the world -

Japan's Abe Cabinet views external affairs as a high-profile issue, and the External Affairs Strategy and Planning Team was organized last year to discuss methods of transmitting information about Japan to the rest of world. As a part of external affairs, the Japanese government has made the decisio...

2014-08-25
Illustrated encyclopedias gain popularity in Japan -

Summer holiday is coming soon. In Japan, new illustrated encyclopedias for children have been published. It has been quite a while since reading has been a popular activity for Japanese children, and many are not interested in the natural sciences. The publishing industry business continues to stagn...

Through a new publishing style called Tate Yoko Project, short stories by Japanese authors regardless of popularity are translated into English, edited, published, and promoted. The project is supported by Sougansha (Head Office is in Tokyo), a new company established this March. Would it be possibl...

2014-08-19
No-charge copyright for Doraemon -

Doraemon, a longtime, popular TV cartoon series in Japan, has recently begun airing in the United States. Twenty-six episodes are scheduled to appear on Disney XD, Disney’s children’s channel. Doraemon has been screened in 40 Asian and European countries and regions, but this is the first attempt t...

2014-08-19
Amazon launches new service, Unlimited Reading -

Amazon has announced the launch of a new service for their users in the US called Kindle Unlimited through which you can read unlimited e-books for $9.99 a month.
There have been similar unlimited reading services in the world such as Oyster, Bookpass and yomel.com, but is there any difference be...

2014-08-19
Edinburgh International Book Festival to be held soon -

An international book festival will be held in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, from August 9th to the 25th. It is one of the annual summer events of the Edinburgh International Festival, which appreciates opera, music, plays and dances performed by the finest creators and performers from th...

2014-08-06
E-book store launched for women by women -

SFGate.com, the portal site of The San Francisco Chronicle, a daily newspaper based in San Francisco, has introduced an e-book store that launched at the end of last year. This e-book store, called Shebooks, is operated solely by women who have worked for the publishing industry. How was this e-book...

2014-08-01
Takashi Tachibana was the keynote lecturer at the Tokyo International Book Fair -

The 21st annual Tokyo International Book Fair was held from July 2nd to the 5th at Tokyo Big Sight. Over 60,000 visitors participated in the 4 days of the event, and it ended on a good note. This year’s event had many seminars and lectures not only for participants from publishing-related industries...

2014-08-01
“The Ninth Art” -- Bande Dessinée Comes to Japan -

France, the third largest Japanese comic consuming country in the world since the late 2000s, has comics called Bande Dessinée (B.D.) and the French have recognized them as “the ninth art". They are also a target of criticism as well as research. From “The Adventure of Tintin” which is one of well-k...

2014-07-24
The National Diet Library is Coming to Your Town -

The National Diet Library’s book browsing service began in January 2014. Following the results of the Copyright Act amendment in 2012, the service became available at public and university libraries. It is convenient for people who live far from Tokyo where the Diet Library is located, but how many ...

2014-07-24
Hong Kong Book Fair to be held soon -

The 25th annual Hong Kong Book Fair will be held from July 16th to the 22nd at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre. This book fair has been popular year by year, and in 2013, there were 560 exhibitors from 30 countries. The exhibitors are mainly from Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan – c...

2014-07-17
The Tokyo International Book Fair to Come Soon -

The 21st annual Tokyo International Book fair will be held from July 2nd to the 5th at Tokyo Big Sight. Five other exhibitions including e-Book Expo and Creator’s Expo will also be held, and many visitors from the publishing industry, booksellers, librarians, the media, advertisers and product devel...

2014-07-15
Who holds the copyright of submitted works for competition? -

UNIQLO, a Japanese apparel company, has revised its terms of service for designing your own T-shirt. According to the original terms, the design copyrights would be transferred to UNIQLO without any compensation to the designer. These terms were criticized, and UNIQLO was required to give the copyri...

2014-07-10
Book Hunting at the Tokyo International Book Fair -

Kinokuniya, one of the largest bookstore chains in Japan, announced that they will hold a book-hunting event and seminar called “The Power of Books – For the Next Generation” at the Tokyo International Book Fair starting July 2nd.
The word “book-hunting” has been used since the late 2000s. Both l...

2014-07-08
Crowdfunding is establishing a position for raising investments -

Crowdfunding -- raising small amounts of money from a large number of individuals, usually through the Internet -- has recently gained recognition. To promote a project, simply set up a profile and specify your goal amount on a crowdfunding website, and then you can ask thousands of potential funder...

2014-07-01
What books are popular among Japanese students? -

Can you guess what books are popular among Japanese students who read for 10 minutes in the morning at school? An association called “Reading in the Morning” reported the most popular books chosen by students in the fiscal year of 2013.
“Reading in the Morning”, an activity to promote reading, wa...

2014-06-30
Japanese Science Fiction is becoming popular in North America -

An original Hollywood film novel that received a literary award for
Japanese science fiction may have the potential to become popular in
North America. This American publisher's translation business strategy
was successful.
The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually in the United States
for...

When a company uses, sells or airs music from Japan, they are required to pay copyright royalties. This revenue has increased significantly.
The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers
(JASRAC) has reported that it has increased 160% since last year.
According to an art...

2014-06-21
Introduction of International Book Fairs in June – Cape Town and Seoul -

Two international book fairs will be held in June.

The first, the South African Book Fair, will be held in Cape Town, South Africa from the 13th to the 15th. Once called the Cape Town Book Fair, this event has become the biggest out of the sub-Saharan African countries. There will be many seminar...

2014-06-18
MediaDo has formed a strategic business alliance with OverDrive in the USA -

MediaDo, a Japanese digital book distributor and content developer, announced that it has formed a strategic business alliance with OverDrive in the United States. OverDrive is the world's biggest digital library platform provider.

Kinokuniya Co Ltd, one of Japan's largest bookstore chains, has announced that it will open its newly expanded and refurbished foreign books section in their Shinjuku South Store on May 29th. The section named “Books Kinokuniya Tokyo” will occupy the entire 6th floor at
1,000 square meters.

Acco...

2014-06-14
Asian Festival of Children’s Content 2014 to be held soon -

The Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) 2014 will be held from May 30th to June 4th at the National Library Building in Singapore.
The National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) is the organizer of the event, which was originally an annual conference for children’s book authors ...

2014-06-07
Will private companies lead the mobile library? -

A mobile library, or bookmobile, is a vehicle fitted with bookshelves that isn't much different from other libraries. Mobile libraries are used to provide public library services to small villages and towns without libraries, and they have been used throughout Japan since after World War II.

Almost one month has passed since the compilation of new short stories by Haruki Murakami “Men without Women” was released. 300,000 copies of the first edition were published, and it still holds the number one ranking for newly releases in bookstores. On the day of the release, many Murakami fans we...

2014-06-02
Biggest book fair in English-speaking countries to be held at end of May -

Book Expo America (BEA), organized by the American Booksellers Association, will be held from May 29th through the 31st at the Jacob K Javits Center in New York.
This book fair, which will have over a thousand exhibitors and 700 authors, is the biggest held in English-speaking countries. Publisher...

Digital books have expanded past the adult world and into the children's world. We recently see parents giving their children digital reading devices when they are unable to read to them themselves.
A research team led by Professor Nobuo Masataka at the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto Universi...

2014-05-22
Indonesia to be the guest of honor at Frankfurt Book Fair in 2015 -

The annual Frankfurt Book Fair, which is held in mid-October, has offered the position of guest of honor for 2015 to Indonesia. This is the first time for Indonesia to be selected, and the Indonesian government has begun preparing for this chance to introduce their culture and literature to the worl...

Literary giant and Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez died on April 17th in Mexico. He was 87. Marquez is known for his works “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and “Love in the Time of Cholera”.
Marquez, a native of Colombia, was raised by his grandparents who were storytellers. His grandfat...

2014-05-15
The International Library of Children’s Literature displays exhibition collections on website -

The International Library of Children’s Literature (ILCL), located in Ueno, Tokyo, recently opened a digital exhibition on their website. The exhibition, titled “Japanese Children’s Literature – A History from the International Library of Children’s Literature Collection”, displays around 220 pieces...

2014-05-13
Why people from all over the world like Natsume’s works -

Soseki Natsume passed away in 1916, nearly a century ago. Times have changed, and Japanese people have broader minds. Now, a Japanese giant writer who represents the Meiji and Taisho periods has acquired new readers from all over the world.

According to the article, this year is the 100th anniver...

2014-05-12
World Book and Copyright Day on April 23rd -

World Book and Copyright Day is held on April 23rd to promote reading, publishing and copyright protection. It is one of the international days organized by UNESCO, and has been celebrated since 1996.
In the Catalonia region of Spain, this day is traditionally celebrated as Saint George’s Day (Sa...

The Japanese Government Tax Commission has revealed a policy to place consumption tax on foreign companies that deliver digital books and songs from overseas through the internet to individual consumers in Japan.
Services that provide digital content using overseas servers such as Amazon in the U...

2014-05-03
Two international book fairs to be held in Europe in April -

Introducing two international book fairs to be held in Europe in late April.
The first will be held in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. It will start on April 24th (the day after World Book and Copyright Day) and last for 4 days until 27th (the day after World Intellectual Property Day) at the Cu...

2014-05-02
Takeo City Library in Saga reaches first anniversary after revamp -

Culture Convenience Club Co. (CCC), operator of Japan’s biggest nationwide video-rental and bookstore chain TSUTAYA, became involved with managing a library in Saga prefecture last year, and its first anniversary was on April 1st of this year. The number of annual visitors has increased 3.6 times, a...

2014-04-24
Statement on Publishing Agreements Announced -

In March, the Japan Writers’ Association announced that publishing agreements need to be adapted into the new digital book era.
In the statement, Hiroshi Shino, president of the association, said that the Japanese publishing culture has unique publishing customs and distribution systems that have ...

2014-04-22
Can you name a little-known major publisher? -

Some of you may have heard of the name John Wood. He is a former Microsoft executive who quit his job to change the world. Room to Read, which is a NGO he founded in 1999, has reached out 7.5 million children and built over 15,000 libraries and nearly 1,700 schools.
The organization also operat...

2014-04-17
Will the position of translators be changed? -

Most literature is delivered to the world's readers through translation. Without the effort of translators, English-speaking readers would be unable to experience Asian literature from countries such as China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia or literature from the Arab world.
However, there is no chance t...

Japanese author Nahoko Uehashi has won the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Award, one of the oldest and most prestigious international children's literature awards.
The award is referred to as a “Small Novel Prize” because of its high selection criteria, and is awarded only for lasting contribution...

2014-04-15
Popular Japanese books in other Asian countries -

Bookworms across Northeast Asia seem indifferent about political fights.
According to an article in the Nikkei Asian Review, literary works by popular contemporary Japanese authors such as Keigo Higashino and Kotaro Isaka are requested to be translated into Korean and Chinese as soon as the firs...

2014-04-09
London Book Fair to be held in spring -

The 43rd annual London Book Fair will be held from April 8th to the 10th. It is one of the biggest book fairs in the world, along with one held in America in May and Frankfurt in October. Over 25,000 participants from 58 countries will gather at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre, where there will be...

2014-04-03
A way to acquire new readers for university presses in the United States -

The universities of the world, including those of Japan, have their own publishing departments which publish huge volumes of work with scholarly, intellectual and creative merit. In some cases, the number of readers is small because the only readers are those who specialize in that particular area, ...

2014-04-03
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2014-04-01
Bangkok International Book Fair Coming Soon -

The Bangkok International Book Fair will be held from March 28th to April 7th in the heart of Bangkok at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center. This year’s event will be the 12th one held, with the 42nd National Book Fair held simultaneously. This book fair is not the only hub of book markets...

2014-03-28
Literary giants have become a popular subject matter in the manga world -

According to an article in the Asahi Shinbun, literary giants have become an increasingly popular subject matter in manga. One popular manga, 'The Times of Botchan' by Natuo Sekikawa and Jiro Taniguchi, describes literary giants and society in the Meiji period (1868-1912) focusing on Soseki Natsume ...

2014-03-26
Spring event “Salon du livre du Paris” -

The biggest book fair in France, “Salon de livre du Paris”, will be held from March 21st to the 24th at Porte de Versailles, which is located in the 15th arrondissement (south) of Paris.
This year’s event will be the 34th one held, and Argentina is nominated as a guest country. Argentina is the...

2014-03-26
Providing e-book readers to students in Tanzania -

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, Head Office: New York, U.S.A) will launch a project to provide e-readers to secondary schools in Tanzania through a non-profit organization, Worldreader (Head Office: California, U.S.A).

According to an article in The Telegraph, this proj...

2014-03-19
The Japanese Manga Situation in France -

France has been the third largest Japanese comic consuming country in the world since the late 2000s. “Manga” is used as a French word to describe Japanese comics and their style.
France has original comics called bande dessinée (B.D.) and the French have recognized them as “the ninth art". They...

2014-03-15
The Leipzig Book Fair and Manga-Comic Convention -

Leipzig, a city in eastern Germany, will host a book fair from March 13th to the 16th.
Leipzig, which has flourished with its culture, is famous for being a city of music, but it also has one of the longest histories of publishing and printing in the world. The first daily newspaper was issued in...

2014-03-13
Just released! App for reading American Comics in Japanese -

The leading comic publisher Marvel Entertainment (Head Office: NY, U.S.A.), which is famous for Marvel Comics, has released an application in the iTunes App Store for reading their e-comics in your native language.
The app is called Marvel Global Comics, and 12 major languages including Japanese...

2014-03-07
International book fairs in late February -

Two major international book fairs are held in late February in the Baltic countries.
The first will be held in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, from Thursday the 20th to Sunday the 23rd. This year’s event will be the 15th one held.
This event focuses exclusively on the readers, and they will h...

2014-03-06
The world’s first MA degree in self-publishing -

According to an article in The Guardian, the eighth biggest university in the UK, the University of Central Lancashire, has announced the launch of a new MA course, a degree in self-publishing.
The world’s first MA course for training experts for self-publishing will begin in September of this year...

2014-03-04
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2014-02-28
CEO of Kobo steps down -

Kobo, which the Japanese company Rakuten acquired in December 2011 for 315-million USD, announced that its CEO, Michael Serbinis, is stepping down from his position.

Toronto-based Kobo is a Canadian e-book company. It was initially a business venture called Shortcovers, which operated a mobile ph...

2014-02-28
Learn business strategies from independent booksellers in the US -

Major chain bookstores are currently having a tough time in the United States, but independent bookstores are flying high. There are many independent bookstores that have seen gains of 15% or more over the previous year. The annual convention for indie bookstores organized by the American Bookseller...

2014-02-21
New Delhi World Book Fair to start soon -

The New Delhi World Book Fair (NDWBF) will be held from Saturday, February 15th to Sunday, February 23rd at Pragati Maidan, an exhibition center in New Delhi, the capital of India. This event started in 1972, and this year’s event will be the 22nd one held.

It started as a relatively small event...

2014-02-19
The Practical Uses of Audiobooks -

Since last year, the most popular topic on the publication world has been e-book related news. The spread and utilization of e-books in Japan are still lower than in Western countries, but there is no doubt that this trend is drawing attention. E-books have many good points, for example, space-frien...

2014-02-13
Is a new digital era coming for textbooks? -

Remember life as a student. You had a hard time carrying your heavy backpack full of textbooks, and you used your imagination for research when you had too little information for an assignment. Students in the future won’t have such memories.

Apple Inc. announced that their iPad digital textbook...

2014-02-12
The 22nd Taipei International Book Exhibition to start soon -

The annual Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) will be held from Wednesday, February 5th, to Monday, February 10th at the Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC). This is one of the world’s biggest book exhibitions, featuring participating authors and publishers from more than 60 countries, and thi...

2014-02-12
Is the expansion of the e-book market in Turkey good news for Japan? -

According to data compiled from the Turkish Publishers Association, whose head office is in Istanbul, the share of e-books increased more than two times from 2011 to 2012, and the trend is expected to continue in the coming years.